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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, 



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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 




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{From a photograph taken at Providence, R.I., in 1882.] 



EZEKIEL GlLMAN ROBINSON 



an autobtogtapl)? 



WITH A SUPPLEMENT BY H. L. WAYLAND 
AND CRITICAL ESTIMATES 



lEtriteti 6g 
E. H. JOHNSON 




SILVER, BURDETT AND COMPANY 

New York . . . BOSTON . . . Chicago 
1896 






^ 



Copyright, 1896, 
By Silver, Burdett and Company. 



/?-3l 



iKtttbersttg Press 
John Wilson and Son, Cambridge, U.S.A. 



PREFACE. 



TN the spring of 1893 Dr. Robinson was prevailed 
upon to begin the dictation of an autobiography. 
At the same time the contributors and the topics for 
a memorial volume were agreed upon substantially as 
they now appear. Dr. Robinson was urged to tell his 
story with entire frankness, and equal frankness was 
asked from the contributors ; they were also assured 
that what they might write, until it went to the pub- 
lisher, would not come under any other eye than that 
of the editor. A more candid memorial volume than 
these plans have secured could hardly be found ; yet 
a less discriminating book would not indicate so fine 
a reverence for him who is its subject. The Critical 
Estimates are pervaded by a conviction that the im- 
press made by Dr. Robinson upon the thinking and 
the preaching of his denomination is the deepest that 
it has received in a generation ; the effort of the 
writers has been to determine and to state the sources 
and nature of an influence which, at the distance even 
of many years, is still rated by those who came under 
it as hardly less than prodigious. In such a case it 
has seemed best to limit for the most part my service 



iv PREFACE. 

as editor to a kind of secretaryship in behalf of the 
writers. This, I am aware, is to accept rather than 
to evade a responsibility. 

The comparative silence of the autobiography and 
of the contributions with regard to Mrs. Robinson, to 
whom, as her husband over and over declared in pub- 
lic, he owed everything, is due to the restrictions 
which she herself imposed upon him and upon all 
who have had a part in the book ; yet all feel that 
the tribute they would like to pay to her is in- 
dispensable to an understanding of him. 

The supplement to the autobiography was pre- 
pared by Dr. Robinson's nearest friend. The list 
of published writings is due to the painstaking of 
A. G. Langley, A. M., the scholarly translator of 
Leibnitz's "New Essays," which are just coming 
before the public in English dress. The Index is 
from the skilful hand of Rev. Robert Kerr Eccles, 
M.D., of Ohio. 

E. H. JOHNSON. 

Crozer Theological Seminary. 
February, 1896. 



CONTENTS. 



part i?tr0t, 

AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 



CHAPTER I. 

CHILDHOOD AND EDUCATION. 

1815-1842. 

Page 

Childhood ; Forgotten ; at School in Pawtucket ; a Sharp Lesson ; in 
a Country School ; First Taste of Literature ; Fighting Fire ; Day's 
Academy ; Preparing for College ; New Hampton ; a Friend in 
Need ; Hale's Academy ; New Hampton again ; Baptized ; En- 
ters College; Discouragements; the Class of 1838; the "United 
Brothers ; " College Societies ; Professor Hackett ; President Way- 
land ; License to Preach ; Graduation ; Agent of Tract Society ; In 
Newton Theological Institution ; Friendships ; Professor Hackett 
again; Dr. Barnas Sears; 111 Health; Call to Norfolk, Virginia; 
hears Henry Clay; a Fateful Detention — Note, Reminiscences by 
fellow-students 3-27 



CHAPTER II. 

PASTORATES AND THE COVINGTON PROFESSORSHIP. 

1842-1853. 

Settles in Norfolk ; Ordained ; Novel Customs ; Liquor Question ; Cod- 
dling ; Chaplain at University of Virginia; the Faculty; Marriage; 
Bridal Trip ; Removes to Cambridge, Massachusetts ; a Troubled 
Deacon ; Illness of Mrs. Robinson ; Call to Covington ; O. W. Holmes ; 
an Old- Style Journey ; Canal-Boat; the Ohio at Low Water ; Coving- 
ton Faculty ; Teaching Hebrew ; Preaching ; Slavery Question ; an 
Official Interview ; Resignation ; Noted Students ; Lyman Beecher ; 



vi CONTENTS. 

Page 

Dr. Pattison ; Calls to Pastorates in Rochester and Cincinnati ; Dr. 
Magoon ; Cholera ; Parishioners ; Discourses on Scepticism ; Call 
to Rochester Theological Seminary ; a Land Speculation — Note, 
Method of Preparing Sermons 28-47 



CHAPTER III. 

THE ROCHESTER PROFESSORSHIP AND PRESIDENCY. 

1853-1866. 

A Happy Change ; First Duties ; Inaugural ; Doctorates of Divinity and 
Laws ; First Year's Trials ; Preaching ; Christian Evidences ; Inspira- 
tion ; Making a Theology ; Teaching in the University ; the Second 
Year ; Lighter Burdens ; a Popular Misunderstanding ; Relativity of 
Knowledge : Sin ; Third Year ; Confidence ; Attributes of God ; New 
England Theology; Homiletics; Work of following Years; Chris- 
tology ; Sermon at Brown in 1856-1857 ; Dr. Conant and Bible Union ; 
Dr. Hotchkiss ; Professor Northrup ; Bad Air and Illness ; Theologi- 
cal Progress ; Sin and Death ; Rapid Change as to Atonement ; Moral 
Law ; Beginnings of a System ; Method with Students ; an Episode, 
and a Mystery Cleared up ; Financial Burdens ; German Depart- 
ment ; J. B. Hoyt ; Professor Rauschenbusch ; Translates Neander's 
" Planting and Training ; " Edits " Christian Review ; " Preaches 
for Presbyterians ; a Novel Interruption ; Preaches in Albany ; Mr. 
Bridgman ; Kingman Nott ; President of Seminary ; Three Years' 
Course; Typhoid; Misunderstanding with University; Estimate of 
President Anderson ; Proposes a Union of Seminaries ; Raising 
Endowment ; Dr. Hotchkiss Resignsj Dr. Kendrick's Venture . 48-76 



CHAPTER IV. 

IN EUROPE. LAST TEARS IN ROCHESTER. 

1866-1872. 

An Invitation ;" Liverpool ; a Christmas Salute ; London ; Archbishop 
Manning; James Martineau; Spurgeon ; Dr. Brock; at St. Albans ; 
"City" Churches; a Dinner in Billingsgate; Snow in London; 
through France; in Italy; Naples; the Opera; Rome; Sight-See- 
ing ; Pius IX. ; the Pope's Pinch of Snuff ; through Northern Italy ; 
Switzerland; D'Auhigne ; Heidelberg; Rothe: Bonn; Lange; Tour 
in England and Scotland ; Cambridge ; Cathedral Towns ; Incident 
in Stirling; Dunblane; Edinburgh; Trossachs ; Glasgow's Drunken- 
ness ; a Scotch Explanation ; Land of Burns ; English Lakes ; a 
Trait of Wordsworth ; Thomas Arnold ; Oxford ; Trouble among 
Anglicans ; London again ; a Study of Spurgeon's Congregation ; 
Visits Parliament; Amusing Discussion in the Lords; Paris; the 



CONTENTS. vii 

Page 
Baptists ; Overtures from Brown ; the Alps ; a Day of Avalanches ; 
Four Months in Berlin; Hengstenberg ; Dorner; Piper; a Debating 
Society; Thanksgiving; Halle; Tholuck; Carols in the Rain ; Voy- 
age Home ; Prefers Theological Work ; Temporary Arrangements 
in the Faculty; Trevor Hall; President's House; Illness; Mr. 
Whittemore; Prosperity; Dr. Bucklaud; Dr. Ilackett ; Class of 
Resident Graduates; the Best Year; Rewriting Lectures- Health 
Fails 77-105 



CHAPTER V. 

PRESIDENCY OF BROWN. 

1872-1889. 

Reasons for Accepting Third Call ; Finds University Depressed ; Stu- 
dents Lively ; Narrow Range of Study ; Old Buildings ; Neglected 
Grounds ; Surplus Income ; Improvement Begun ; a New Physical 
Laboratory ; Slater Hall ; New Library Building ; Sayles Memorial 
Hall ; Grading Campus ; Professor Greene and Ball-Ground ; Uni- 
versity Hall Renovated ; Mr. Wilson's Plans ; Wilson Hall ; Gov- 
ernor Ladd's Promise of Observatory; Curriculum and Faculty 
Enlarged ; Trouble in Faculty about Electives and Ph.D. ; Faction 
in Boards — Note A, Break in Autobiography — Note B, Concern 
for Religious Life of College — Note C, Self-Restraint and Sensi- 
sibility— Note D, Dr. Hackett's Tribute 106-126 



THE CLOSING YEARS (1889-1894). — A SUPPLEMENT. 

H. L. Watland, D.D. 

Presidency of Brown Resigned; Professor Gammell's Remarks; the 
Grundmann Portrait ; at Memorial Church in Philadelphia ; Lec- 
tures on Missions at Andover, at Rochester; Bereaved; Crozer 
Lectureship; Poetical Tribute of Brown Alumnus; Pulpit Service at 
Immanuel Church in Baltimore and Fifth Church in Philadelphia; 
at Baptist Congress; Lectures at Brown on Modern Thought and 
Religion ; Professor at Chicago ; his Vigor and its Causes ; Golden 
Wedding; the Fatal Disease; Preaches at Vassar; Death and 
Burial ; Memorial Services ; Love for Truth ; Effect on Bearing, 
and on Later Rhetorical Style ; Kindness of Heart ; an Illustration; 
Mental Intensity ; Faith in Christ — Note A, Dr. Wayland's Memorial 
Addresses — Note B, On the Character of Dr. Robinson . . . 129-144 



viii CONTENTS. 

part £>econD, 

CEITICAL ESTIMATES. 

Page 

I. As a Pastor : A. J. Sage, D. D 147 

II. As a Theologian: Pres. A. H. Strong, D.D., LL.D. ... 163 

III. As a Seer : Prof. G. W. Northrup, D. D., LL. D 21 1 

IV. As a Teacher of Theology : A. J. P. Behrends, D. D. . . 223 
V. As a Leader in Post-Graduate Study : Prof. B. O. True, D.D. 243 

VI. As a Teacher of Homiletics and as a Preacher : Way- 
land Hoyt, D. D 257 

VII. As President of Brown University : Pres. E. B. Andrews, 

D.D., LL.D 269 

VIII. As a Teacher of Philosophy : A. G. Langley, A. M. . . 281 
IX. As Colleague at the University of Chicago : Pres. W. R. 

Harper, Ph. D., LL. D 319 

X. As an Orator and a Man of Letters : Prof. W. C. Wil- 
kinson, D.D 327 

XI. As a Trustee and a Friend : Pres. J. M. Taylor, D. D., LL. D. 339 



APPENDIX. 

I. The Case of Ann T. Peck .349 

II. The Western Theological Institute at Covington, Kentucky . . . 351 

III. Graduating Address at Newton 357 

IV. Lecture-Room Sayings 361 

V. List of Published Writings 367 



INDEX 369 



$art tfir£t 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY, WITH SUPPLEMENT. 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 



CHAPTEE I. 

CHILDHOOD AND EDUCATION. 
1815-1842. 

I WAS born, March 23, 1815, at South Attleboro, Massa- 
chusetts, about six miles from Providence, on a farm 
which had been in the family some four or five generations. 1 
It was bought originally of the Indians. My father, 
Ezekiel Robinson, was the second of five brothers. The 
next younger brother than himself, Samuel Eobinson, was 
a physician, who, having a pulmonary affection, removed 
to North Carolina early in the present century, practising 
medicine until about the year 1823 or 1824. Then he de- 
voted his attention exclusively to mineralogy, exploring the 
localities of minerals throughout the then known United 
States, and collecting a cabinet of minerals 2 which afterwards 
found place at Harvard College. 

1 At a memorial service to Dr. RobiDson held in Boston, the late Eev. 
Dr. A. J. Gordon stated that, in the course of genealogical investigations 
about his own family, he found Dr. Robinson to be a descendant of the Rev. 
John Robinson of Leyden. It is matter of record that his ancestor, George 
Robinson of the Plymouth colony, held lands by allotment in Rehoboth, after 
their purchase from the Indians. A part of these lands is still held by the 
family, and the subject of this memoir was born on the ancestral estate. — Ed. 

2 This was really the nucleus of the cabinet of minerals at Harvard 
University, and was purchased by Professor Webster. My uncle published 



4 EZEKIEL GILMAN ROBINSON. 

My father, after the death of his father, who had left his 
estate encumbered, removed from the farm to that part of 
Pawtucket which was then within the line of Massachusetts, 
becoming an innkeeper, and one of the sheriffs of Bristol 
County. He died after a short illness in the autumn of 1819, 
when I was four and a half years of age. My mother with 
four children, of whom I was the youngest, returned to the 
farm, where we continued to live until I was about eight 
years of age. Desiring better opportunities for the education 
of her children, she returned to Pawtucket. Of the schools 
I attended prior to my eighth year not even the faintest 
remembrance remains. Of struggles with words and of a 
sense of victory in learning to read long before this, I have 
a vivid recollection, but of teachers and schools all remem- 
brance has vanished. The earliest recollection that I have 
of being in a schoolroom goes back to the time when I must 
have been nearly four and a half years of age. How I 
happened to be there I cannot say ; certainly not as a regu- 
lar scholar, probably as a casual visitor with older sisters. 
The recollection is not of anything studied or learned, but 
of a great fright when the school had been dismissed, and 

one of the earliest catalogues of minerals issued in this country. He died in 
the winter of 1825-26 at St. Augustine. — E. G. R. 

A letter from the late Professor J. W. P. Jenks shows the estimate in 
which this-uncle was held : "When I left for Florida in 1874, he [President 
Robinson] requested me to look through the cemetery at St. Augustine to see 
in what condition the headstone of his uncle's grave might be. . . . Instead 
of a mere headstone I found a neat monument in a lot enclosed by an iron 
fence, and on the monument an inscription to this import : — 

" Sacred to the memory of Samuel Robinson, M.D., who attained great 
distinction in his profession during a long residence in this city, and by his 
public services and wise counsels greatly endeared himself to all his fellow- 
citizens, by whom this monument is erected in grateful recognition of his 
worth. 

" These are not the exact words, but the meaning of the inscription I am 
certain to have expressed." 



CHILDHOOD AND EDUCATION. 5 

the scholars had all left. It was in a late summer or early- 
autumn afternoon, when, wearied from play, or lulled by the 
hum of the schoolroom, I had lain down on one of the long 
seats and had fallen asleep. Hidden by the desk from the 
eye of the teacher, and forgotten by my sisters, I had been 
left asleep and locked up alone. I awoke when all had left, 
and the alarm and wailing that followed have never wholly 
faded from my memory. 

At eight my school days and education began in earnest. 1 
I was sent to a large school kept by a Mr. Hill in Pawtucket. 
Here most of the scholars of both sexes were older than 
myself. Chief among many unprofitable tasks imposed upon 
me was the study of Lindley Murray's English Grammar. 
I was compelled to learn indefinite quantities of detail about 
" parts of speech," under the designation of " Etymology," 
and to commit to memory verbatim the twenty-two rules of 
"Syntax," and apply these in "parsing." Human ingenuity 
could hardly have devised anything more dreary and destruc- 
tive of all childish interest. So desperate was the effort to 
master some of these rules that they have never ceased to 
haunt me with unpleasant memories. So far as any useful- 
ness was concerned, any other English words arbitrarily 
combined would have served the same end. The weary 
months spent on that grammar were worse than wasted; 
they did me a permanent injury. I acquired the parrot-like 
habit of recitation, and of reading without taking in the 
sense of what I read. That study of grammar came near 
making useless the next few years of my school life. But 
there was one lesson learned by me at Mr. Hill's big school 
that has been invaluable to me ever since, — a lesson learned 

1 This account of Dr. Robinson's student life has been enlarged by incor- 
porating parts of his article, " How I was Educated," which appeared in the 
" Forum " for December, 1886. — Ed. 



6 EZEKIEL GILMAN KOBINSON. 

not from books but from a fellow-student, and from Mr. 
Hill's blind savagery of discipline. A youth named Lord, 
much older than I, sat directly in front of me, having, as all 
scholars then had, a " ruler," which he contrived in some 
way to thrust through the back of his seat for my special 
annoyance. I seized it, and on his trying to give it a 
wrench for my greater annoyance, it snapped with a loud 
report. The ever-watchful master, with rawhide in hand, 
— he was never without it in school hours, — was at once 
on the spot, demanding an explanation of the noise. With 
childish simplicity I told the story just as it was, which 
Lord vehemently denied, and denounced me as the offender. 
Older and bolder than I, he browbeat me into the weakened 
statement that " I thought he did it." The result was that 
for the first and only time in my life I tasted the qualities 
of a rawhide. The lesson, not to be frightened out of what 
I knew to be the truth, was worth to me all it cost, and has 
been more valuable in life than all I learned from Lindley 
Murray's grammar. I never shall forget the exciting 
interest with which, years after I had studied Latin gram- 
mar, I read an English grammar which seemed like a revela- 
tion. It happened one evening, and so absorbed me that I 
threw aside everything else until I had read it through 
from beginning to end. 

When I was eleven years of age, my mother returned to 
the old paternal farm, which, with the help of hired men, 
was cultivated by my elder brother and myself. The spring- 
time, the open fields, the birds, the blossoming of orchards, 
the planting of gardens, banished all thought of school, and 
made life a genuine pleasure. Three or four years slipped 
away, my education being conducted chiefly in a country 
district school. The school was, perhaps, equal to the aver- 
age Massachusetts schools of that day; but, as I now 



CHILDHOOD AND EDUCATION. 7 

recall it, nothing in the way of teaching, so far as I was 
concerned, could have been more worthless. One winter 
afternoon, however, in that country school-house still lingers 
with me as one of the pleasantest of memories. Among 
the books used in the school was a reading-book made up 
mostly of extracts from well-known English authors. 
Among these was Johnson's " Hermit of Teneriffe." Some- 
thing induced me to read it. I was absorbed ; consciousness 
of my surroundings ceased. When the brief story was 
finished, the slanting rays of the sun seemed to have trans- 
formed the room. I was with the hermit on the slope of 
Teneriffe. It was my first conscious taste of literature. I 
had read " Eobinson Crusoe," " The Pilgrim's Progress," and 
other books in vogue with boys ; but nothing had ever 
interested me like this story. Why it so affected me I 
cannot tell, unless there may have been some mental 
mood to which it chanced at the instant to be specially 
fitted. 

Little as these years of country life did for me in the way 
of mental training, they nurtured a naturally weak consti- 
tution into a strength that has since been equal to many a 
year of mental strain. About the time we returned to the 
farm an event occurred which had some influence on my 
after life : the old ancestral house with nearly all its contents 
was burned to the ground. In it were lost valuable papers 
and family relics that had been collecting for generations. 
The reflections caused by that fire enabled me afterwards 
to put out two fires which, but for immediate action, would 
have resulted in great loss. 1 

1 In my first professorship at Covington the room in which I was teaching 
was suddenly darkened by a cloud of smoke outside the windows. We 
rushed to the attic ; a huge hole had already been burned in the roof. I 
called for a bucket of water, which seemed absurd enough. I dipped in the 



8 EZEKIEL GILMAN KOBINSON. 

My farming experience extended till I was fourteen years 
of age, when I was sent to Day's Academy, as it was called, 
a well-known school of that time at Wrentham, Massachu- 
setts. I then had no thought of going to college. My eager 
desire was to be a farmer. I was accordingly put to such 
studies as suited the convenience of the principal, and seemed 
to him not wholly unfit for a boy of my age and needs. With 
the exception of a mere smattering of mechanical principles, 
misnamed Natural Philosophy, and perhaps a perceptible 
shade of increase in mental discipline, the only real gain 
made at this school was in some slight knowledge, derived 
from " The Political Class-Book," of the constitution of our 
national government as well as of the governments of the 
several States of the Union. 

Just how long I remained at Day's Academy I cannot 
now remember, nor precisely what followed my leaving it. 
I only remember spending another summer on the ancestral 
farm, with another trial of the country public school. The 
year came near proving a total loss educationally, though I 
made some progress in the knowledge of books. Physical 
mishaps, 1 disabling and shutting me up in the house, com- 
pelled me to seek recreation in reading. I was now sixteen 
years old, and it was necessary for me to decide on my 
future in life. The question then was, Should I go to col- 
lege ? I had rather by accident and aimlessly stumbled upon 
a preparatory course. My mother said, if there was any 
prospect of my amounting to anything, she would gladly 

bucket an old pair of trousers lying on the attic floor, and in a very few minutes 
whipped out every trace of the fire. The class standing by said I acted like 
a frantic man. The other fire threatened the old presidential mansion at 
Brown University. — E. G. K. 

1 Dr. Kobinson, while a boy, was easily poisoned by wild plants ; and this 
fact weighed with his mother in deciding that he was not fitted for life on a 
farm. — Er>. 



CHILDHOOD AND EDUCATION. 9 

have me go to college ; but did not wish me to go there 

and come out a gambler and horse-racer, as Dr. had 

done, with whose parents she had been intimately acquainted. 
It must be admitted that all attempts up to that time to 
give me an education had been comparatively futile. They 
could hardly have been more ill-advised. Over-crowded 
schools, incompetent teachers, and the radical mistake of 
frequently changing schools, with intervals between the 
changes of long mental idleness, had borne their natural 
fruits. I was a boy past sixteen, with no desire for edu- 
cation, and with about the worst possible habits of study. 
But it was decided that I might, if I wished, prepare for 
college, and that for this purpose I should go to a prepara- 
tory school in New Hampton, New Hampshire, where my 
sister, six years older than myself, had spent the preceding 
summer at the woman's academy, under the tuition of Miss 
Haseltine, a famous teacher of that day. 

It was past the middle of March, the snow had all disap- 
peared from Southern Massachusetts, the robins had come, 
and the spring had fairly begun, when, with a full supply 
of clothing for a year, I was put on board a stage-coach for 
Boston, with the understanding that two and a half days' 
stage travelling would bring me to my destination. With 
less knowledge of the world than then belonged to the aver- 
age boy of my age, that stage journey was itself distinc- 
tively educational. The landing at Wild's Hotel in Elm 
Street, Boston, the great centre for stage travellers of that 
day; the start at four in the morning for Concord, New 
Hampshire ; the loud rattling of the coach-wheels over the 
cobble-stone pavement of the empty streets, in the cold dark- 
ness of that dreary March morning ; the frightful state of the 
roads, prolonging the one day's drive to Concord into two; 
the exchange of wheels for runners on the fourth day from 



10 EZEKIEL GILMAN ROBINSON. 

home, with the " seasickness " that followed, — all had. their 
lessons for me. I reached New Hampton, the most forlorn 
and disheartened boy that ever dropped among merry school- 
fellows. The surrounding country at once interested me more 
than the school. I was made the room-mate of a soulless 
student, much older than myself, with whom it was impos- 
sible for me to have a particle of sympathy, and was set to 
work on Adams' " Latin Grammar," simply committing to 
memory its larger type, and its declensions of nouns and con- 
jugations of verbs. My teacher, a middle-aged man, was, to 
speak truly, the most stupid person I have ever seen fulfilling 
the office of teacher. Nothing could have been more perfunc- 
tory than his instruction. If I recited the text verbatim, 
well and good ; if not, he simply repeated the words for me, 
and nothing more. When the spring vacation came, I de- 
termined to quit Latin, abandoning all thought of college, 
and deciding to devote myself to such English studies as 
the school might offer. My sister ridiculed me for my lack 
of perseverance. 

During the vacation there came to the school, from some- 
where in Maine, a man who had several years before been 
prepared for college, but who through some family disaster 
had failed to enter. Having become a zealous Christian, 
he had resolved to fit himself for the Christian ministry, and 
had come to New Hampton to review his studies preparatory 
to entering "college in the autumn. Becoming interested 
somehow in my welfare, and winning my confidence, he 
remonstrated against my purpose to drop the thought of 
college, and insisted on my resuming the study of Latin with 
him for instructor. And he knew by instinct how to teach. 
He was the first man that up to that time had ever enkin- 
dled in me a spark of enthusiasm in any study. He soon 
had me all aglow, and inspired me with a zeal that aroused 



CHILDHOOD AND EDUCATION. 11 

me at four o'clock in the morning to continue the study of 
Latin. Till he left for college I was daily in his room, 
working with an eagerness to me never known before nor 
equalled since. Mr. Moses Curtis, the friend who thus 
saved me from a misstep, was a man of rare parts, of high 
endowments, and of warm sympathies. He left New Hamp- 
ton at the end of the summer term to enter college. I saw 
no more of him for more than two years, when I entered 
Freshman, and he was a member of the Junior class. He 
died in his room at college from hemorrhage of the lungs. 
His death made a profound impression on the whole college, 
and on me, in particular, to whom he had especially en- 
deared himself. 

I remained at New Hampton for one year, when I returned 
home for some new clothes. On entering the house I was 
met with shouts of laughter at my appearance. I was a 
specimen of " the rising son " of the comic almanac. My 
trousers were too short, my coat too small and short-sleeved, 
and I was, altogether, a laughable object. But inwardly I 
had changed more than outwardly, and was now intent on a 
college education. I had then to decide whether I would 
return to New Hampton. It was not an attractive school ; 
at least, it had no attractions for me. A new academy had 
been opened at Pawtucket, under the principalship of Mr. 
Joseph Hale, a graduate of Harvard College. It was decided 
that I should enter it. At first I boarded in the family of a 
young and newly married physician near the academy ; but 
as spring drew near to summer, an old yearning for the 
country revived with force. The distance between the acad- 
emy and my country home was two miles, and I resolved to 
try the experiment of walking it daily. The experiment 
was a success. A fondness for solitary country walks was 
thus acquired, which has never forsaken me! The delight 



12 EZEKIEL GILMAN ROBINSOK 

of the mornings and evenings in the orchards and woods, and 
among the birds, was incessant. The year passed swiftly 
by, and I made fair progress, under Mr. Hale, in the study 
of Greek, besides doing something in Latin. Some one sug- 
gested that I could enter college that autumn. I went to 
Brown University, and consulted with Professor Caswell. 
He received me kindly ; but I was so self -distrustful and shy 
that my eyes rilled with tears, and I choked in telling my 
errand. He advised me to wait another year. 

But there was for me one serious drawback in the Paw- 
tucket Academy : I had and could have no classmates. I 
needed instruction in three, if not four, distinct branches. 
As a single pupil the requisite time could not be given me. 
The New Hampton Academy, during my absence from it, had 
undergone a change ; it now had younger and more compe- 
tent teachers. There was a class of several young men who 
were to enter college in the fall, and I joined them. That 
summer school among the hills of New Hampshire was the 
happiest of all my school days ; long strolls, pleasant com- 
panionships, and, withal, teachers superior to those I had 
previously known there, made me contented and joyous. 
These new classmates whom I found were all candidates for 
the ministry. I had myself no definite purpose in fitting 
for college. Association with these classmates had most 
likely much to do with turning my own thoughts toward 
the ministry. During a revival in 1829, when fourteen 
years of age, I had become a member of the First Baptist 
Church in Pawtucket. I became a member of the church 
with the crudest possible ideas of religion, and with a reli- 
gious experience as unsatisfactory as it could well have been. 
Dissatisfaction with that experience was, for a series of years 
afterwards, a source of most painful anxiety. I had blun- 
dered blindly into the church. This has haunted me all my 



CHILDHOOD AND EDUCATION. 13 

life, but has been of great service to me as a pastor and 
teacher. 1 stumbled purposelessly into a course of study. 
Of course the question was started with me, through associa- 
tion with my classmates, What was I going to college for ? 
— a then unanswerable question. 

On entering college I found myself about as poorly pre- 
pared for the work before me as any member of the class ; 
and it has been to me a source of ceaseless regret that, 
instead of having picked up a fragmentary preparation for 
college at the hands of various and indifferent teachers, I 
could not have been sent either to Phillips Exeter or Phillips 
Andover Academy. It was the penalty of a lack of intelli- 
gent advisers. I entered college when I was nineteen. It 
was my good fortune to be a member of one of the most 
remarkable classes which Brown University has graduated. 
The most brilliant Latinist of the class died soon after gradu- 
ating, — the brother of Chief Justice Ames of PJiode Island. 
In this class, numbering only thiity-two, were Chief Justice 
Bradley of Bhode Island; Chief Justice Morton of Massa- 
chusetts ; Bishop Burgess of Quincy, Illinois ; George Van 
Ness Lothrop of Detroit, afterwards minister to St. Peters- 
burg ; Judge Wilson of the Appellate Court of Chicago ; the 
distinguished Thomas A. Jenckes, father of civil-service 
reform ; Albert N. Arnold, missionary to Greece, and after- 
ward professor of Greek in two institutions, with several 
others of only lesser note. 1 The majority of them had re- 
ceived the best possible training. I felt at once the inferi- 
ority of my preparation in comparison with theirs, and was 
disheartened. Severe illness almost at the outset drove me 
home ; hence my first term in college was nearly lost time. 
The second was a great improvement on the first. Could the 
improvement have been progressively continued, the result 

1 For recollections by college mates, see note at end of chapter. — Ed. 



14 EZEKIEL GILMAN ROBINSON. 

of my college life would have been different from what it 
was ; but the memory of the first term haunted me : my 
courage and ambition sank to the verge of extinction. To 
add to my misfortune, the most intimate of my friends, 
though pure in their lives, and morally wholesome as asso- 
ciates, were low in their aims as scholars, satisfied with very 
little and very superficial work. They had been sent to 
college to prepare for the ministry, and were fair specimens 
of a class of men not yet wholly extinct. Selected, and 
aided by beneficiary funds, as " candidates for the ministry, " 
they seemed to absolve themselves from the duty of high 
aims as scholars, and dropped into the wretched cant of 
" laying aside worldly ambition as unworthy the servants of 
the Lord. " 

But, on the other hand, it was my good fortune to be a 
member of a debating society composed of a very different 
sort of men from those who were my most intimate friends. 
Of the two great debating societies, candidates for the min- 
istry were generally members of the Philermenian Society. 
Nobody imagined that the Christian ministry was thought 
of by me. I was supposed to be preparing for the law. I 
was a member of the United Brothers, which consisted of 
the rough-and-tumble element. But in direct education 
for the real work of life no influences of my college days 
were equal to those of this Society. It called into use and 
fastened in my memory what little I learned from text-books 
and in lecture-rooms ; it prompted to inquiries and investi- 
gations that otherwise would never have been made ; it 
stimulated the exercise of all my intellectual faculties, as 
the set tasks of professors never could. In many particulars 
the typical college of to-day is manifestly superior to that 
of fifty years ago ; but in the societies of its students, for the 
cultivation of literature and skill in debate, its inferiority 



CHILDHOOD AND EDUCATION. 15 

is too marked not to awaken solicitude as well as regret in 
the minds of all friends of liberal learning. Societies pro- 
fessedly literary, it is true, abound in the college of to-day, 
but they are societies in which social elements so predomi- 
nate over every other that their influence on college life is 
to enhance its expensiveness, and to split its classes into 
rival cliques, rather than to quicken their intellects and to 
rouse them to high endeavor. Nothing yet devised has 
filled, or can fill, as a means of education, the place of the 
great debating societies, composed of representatives from 
every class in college, at once imposing and inspiring from 
their numbers, which were so marked a feature of the col- 
lege of forty or fifty years ago. The Greek-letter societies 
were, about that time, introduced into college. At the end 
of my Junior year, when election of officers for the Brothers ' 
Society was to take place for the following year, the bitter 
opponents of the Alpha Delta Phi fraternity, without con- 
ferring with me, made me their candidate for the presidency 
of the United Brothers. I was elected by a handsome 
majority. This result brought controversy into the Society. 
We fought like tigers, — an experience which materially 
helped to develop my debating powers. 

Brown University, when I became a student of it, was 
not strong in its classical and its mathematical departments, 
which then comprised the larger part of its established cur- 
riculum. If a student became proficient in either of these 
studies, it was in spite of professorial influence. Latin 
and Greek could hardly, on deliberate purpose, have been 
more inefficiently taught. In my Sophomore year, however, 
came a great and radical change, comparatively a revolution, 
in the teaching of Latin. It came with the appointment of 
a new professor, young and enthusiastic, whose accurate 
methods and contagious spirit of enthusiasm put new life 



16 EZEKIEL GILMAN ROBINSON. 

into all his classes, and were felt throughout the college. 
To this young professor, Horatio B. Hackett, afterwards 
known as one of the most eminent of American Biblical 
scholars, I owe a debt of gratitude such as is due to none 
other of my teachers of language. Rhetoric, when I entered 
Brown, was cultivated with marked success under the dis- 
tinguished professor, William E. Goddard ; but the class of 
which I was a member pursued that study under the tuition 
of the then youthful but no less skilful and since distin- 
guished professor, William Gammell. By no means the 
least valuable part of my college education came from read- 
ing during my vacations, especially the long winter vaca- 
tions, though it must be admitted that too much attention 
was given to the novels of Cooper and Scott. 

The most profitable portion of my college life was its last 
year, under the instruction of President Wayland. He was 
then in the ripe fulness of his powers. His specialty as a 
teacher was moral science, though he also taught political 
economy. But the latter interested him only theoretically ; 
the former, practically and intensely. His strong sense of 
justice and his profound love of truth made him a most 
impressive teacher of ethics, — the most impressive I have 
ever known ; and his keen sense of humor, his quick wit, 
his appreciation of wit in others, always made his recitation- 
room a very lively place. He was no metaphysician ; his 
moral science, even in its distinctively theoretic portions, 
was more practical than metaphysical, no part of it resting 
on any metaphysical system, avowed or implied. When I 
was his pupil, mental philosophy, even on its psychological 
side, had received from him only casual attention. His 
treatise on " Intellectual Philosophy " was written after I had 
passed from under him, and years after his views of moral 
science had become inflexibly fixed. Nor was he widely 



CHILDHOOD AND EDUCATION. 17 

read in the science of ethics. Allusions in his lecture- 
room to authors whose views differed from his own were 
extremely rare. He had thought out his ethical principles 
for himself, and his conclusions were deep and strong, and 
rooted in the very depths of his being. Above all men 
whom I ever knew, he was himself the embodiment of what 
he taught. Clear and analytic in his own thinking, he 
insisted on analyzed and logical thought in his pupils. 
Possessed of a stature and a muscular development and a 
physiognomy that would have made him an admirable model 
for a Jupiter Tonans, and animated by a spirit that lifted him 
above everything selfish and mean, he succeeded beyond every 
other college president of his time, I suspect, in impressing 
himself and his sentiments on all who came under his 
instruction. 

The class of which I was a member had the good fortune 
to be under Dr. Wayland in a year specially favorable for 
the best results of his teaching. It was the year in which 
he was writing and sending to the press his once famous 
little book on " The Limitations of Human Responsibility. " 
His " Moral Science " had pleased neither the slaveholders 
nor the abolitionists. It had offended the former by going 
too far in its condemnation of slavery, the latter by not 
going far enough. He was between two raging fires. 
To defend himself, chiefly against the abolitionists, he 
wrote his " Limitations. " Most of the positions taken, and 
of the principles defended, came up for questioning and 
discussion by our class. The teacher was full of his sub- 
ject, encouraging and entering into the discussions with the 
liveliest zest. As our class contained an unusual number 
of bright intellects, the mutual stimulus of the class was no 
unimportant factor in our education. 

I left college with perhaps an average knowledge of 

2 



18 EZEKIEL GILMAN EOBINSON. 

Latin, Greek, and mathematics ; of modern languages, 
history, and mental science I had learned nothing ; of 
chemistry, physiology, and geology I had acquired a 
smattering; of "Butler's Analogy" and of ethics I had 
obtained a fair degree of knowledge. I had drifted aim- 
lessly into college and drifted aimlessly through it, waking 
up only during the last year to see what I might and ought 
to have done. 

About the middle of my college course the church at 
Pawtucket, of which I was a member, assuming that I was 
preparing for the ministry, invited me to speak before them 
for a license to preach. Without much reflection I consented 
to do so. An unused license was given me. In my Senior 
year a quiet but effective revival of religion occurred in 
college, which served to bring me to very serious reflection 
and to an earnest inquiry as to what I should do after 
graduation. No definite conclusion, however, was reached. 
As I was about to graduate, there came to me unexpectedly 
a proposition to accept an agency from the American Tract 
Society of New York City, then under the direction of the 
two distinguished secretaries, Eev. Drs. Hallock and Cook. 
In an interview with Dr. Cook, it was agreed that I should 
become agent of the Society to represent its work among the 
churches of Hartford County, Connecticut. My duties were 
to address the churches in all the towns of the county 
outside the city, giving an account of the work of the 
Society, and securing volunteer colporteurs in these churches 
to circulate and sell the works of the Society. I was to 
make one address each Sunday, keep an account of the 
books sold by the colporteurs, and return the proceeds 
to the Society in New York. The duties of this agency 
proved to be of great and unexpected value to me. They 
gave me a much needed self-confidence, relieved me from 



CHILDHOOD AND EDUCATION. 19 

a distressing timidity, besides widening my acquaintance 
with men and business methods. I made many valuable 
acquaintances among these churches and their pastors, such 
as Dr. Porter, of Farmington, father of the late President 
Porter of Yale, and many others. I had but one address, 
which I learned by heart, and delivered before every con- 
gregation. I continued in this service until the beginning 
of 1839, something more than six months, when I resigned 
against the remonstrances of the secretaries. I felt that it 
was time for me to decide as to my future course in life. 
The Society, to my surprise, made me an honorary life- 
member. There were a great many amusing scenes. I 
remember one old Congregational minister who asked, 
" Where have you studied theology ? " Well, of course 
I blushed up to my eyes and said, "I haven't studied 
theology. " Many similar and embarrassing interviews 
occurred during my continuance in that agency. 

On resigning this service the question then occurred to 
me, What shall I do next ? I thought for a moment of 
going to Newton Theological Institution, but speedily 
abandoned the plan as impracticable at that season of the 
year. Eeturning to Brown University, I secured and fur- 
nished one of the rooms, and became for six months a resi- 
dent graduate. I began zealously the study of German with 
my classmate, Bradley, then a tutor in the University, under 
the tuition of Professor Hackett, then in the chair of Latin 
at Brown. I have an indefinite recollection of having also 
done something with Hebrew, but under whose instruction 
I cannot recall. But my stay at Brown was of little profit. 
There was no provision for graduate instruction. In the 
following summer I was induced to write and deliver an 
address on temperance in Seekonk, Massachusetts, which 
was received with such favor as to give me considerable 



20 EZEKIEL GILMAN ROBINSON. 

encouragement. To my surprise the old Congregational 
church of Attleboro, where my ancestors for generations 
had worshipped, invited me to preach for them. I occupied 
their pulpit two Sundays. At this time, and for long after- 
ward, the excitement of public speaking made me ill. That 
service seemed to solve the problem whether I was to be a 
minister of the gospel. At the end of summer the question 
arose whether I should study theology, and, if so, where. 
Dr. Hackett had resigned the professorship of Latin at Brown 
University, and accepted the chair of Biblical Literature at 
Newton Theological Institution. I decided to go to New- 
ton, that I might be under his instruction. 

At Newton I found myself member of a class of eighteen. 
Two or three only of these had been my classmates in col- 
lege, all of whom dropped off before the end of our course. 
Our number was reduced to twelve before the completion of 
the course. With two of these my relations were very 
intimate. One of them was a South Carolinian, who had 
received a military training, and afterwards became a very 
successful theological teacher in one of the South Carolinian 
institutions, — James S. Mims. He was a noble fellow. And 
the other was Jacob E. Scott, a graduate of Brown of two 
years' earlier date than myself. He was a man of the finest 
qualities of nature, possessed of an exquisite literary taste, 
not inferior as an epistolary writer to Cowper himself. In 
personal appearance he was a reproduction of Henry Kirke 
White. Scott was the most intimate personal friend that 1 
had in all my student life. Professor Hackett's instructions 
in my first year at Newton were in the highest degree stimu- 
lating. Under his tuition I did better work than I had 
done in any previous year of my life. He was, on the whole, 
the most stimulating teacher under whom I ever studied. 
When he thought his classes negligent in their work, he 



CHILDHOOD AND EDUCATION. 21 

would drop his books upon the desk, and with flashing eye 
and both hands gesticulating, would so set forth and ex- 
patiate upon the value of Hebrew learning or a knowledge 
of the New Testament as to rouse some of us into a pitch of 
enthusiasm which would send us to our rooms with a pur- 
pose of doing the best we were capable of. I was more 
indebted to him than he became aware of till long years 
after, and especially when we became colleagues, in the latter 
part of his life, at Rochester Theological Seminary. At one 
period when Professor Hackett was despondent over his 
work, Dr. J. W. Parker of Cambridgeport took in hand to 
encourage him by telling him that Robinson, among others, 
had said he was more indebted to him as a teacher than to 
any man living. He querulously exclaimed, " Why did he 
never tell me that ? " When Dr. Parker reported this to me, 
I replied, " Because he never permitted me to come within 
arm's length of him. " This also was reported to him. Dr. 
Hackett took it good-naturedly, and I really think it made 
him more communicative with his students. In the in- 
tensity of spirit with which he himself worked, he thought 
very little of trying to stimulate his students by coming into 
personal relations to them. 

In my second year at Newton I came under the instruction 
of Rev. Dr. Barnas Sears. He was then overflowing with 
German learning. He taught us Systematic Theology. His 
method of teaching was peculiarly his own. With a total 
absence of dogmatism he propounded and discussed the- 
ological questions with indefinitely numerous references to 
authors, especially the German, leaving each student to catch 
in his notes what he could. He rarely or never gave us 
definite and exact statements of his own theological opin- 
ions. The result was that we often left his lecture-room 
unsettled, afloat as to what we should definitely believe. 



22 EZEKIEL GILMAN ROBINSOX. 

I concluded my course under him with no definable system 
of theological belief. There was not a single doctrine of 
which I could have given a satisfactory account. 1 But his 
teaching had roused in me a spirit of inquiry which was 
insatiable. The kindness of Professor Eipley was unparal- 
leled. It was said of him, Nature had made him so kindly 
that there was nothing for grace to do. To the other profes- 
sors of the Institution I was gratefully indebted for the special 
service they rendered. The library provisions at Newton 
when I was a student there were of the meagerest, and what 
the library contained was accessible to students only at inter- 
vals, — a complete contrast with the present provisions. 

In the spring of the year that my course at Newton was 
to close I found myself in an uncertain state of health. The 
way it came about was that I sat at the head of the table and 
poured coffee for my two friends, Minis and Scott, breakfast- 
ing myself on coffee and a Graham cracker. I soon began 
to collapse. While I was thinking of a sea-voyage for the 
sake of my health, a proposition was made by a friend in 
the next class below me, who had been a teacher in Virginia, 
that, instead of a sea-voyage, I should accept an invitation 
to supply a pulpit during the spring vacation at Norfolk, 
Virginia. He insisted that a trip down the Chesapeake 
Bay and through Hampton Eoads would give me all the 
benefit of sea-air that I needed. This invitation I accepted, 
spending the most of April and May in Norfolk. This 
preaching in Norfolk had no little influence on my subse- 
quent life. My experience there was novel and of highest 
interest. It was my first acquaintance with slavery and 

1 My experience under the teaching of Dr. Sears would explain some of 
the peculiarities of my own method of teaching. I was determined that 
students should not leave my lecture-room without definite conclusions and 
convictions, and some sufficient reasons for holding them. — E. G. R. 



CHILDHOOD AND EDUCATION. 23 

Southern life. On leaving to return to my studies at 
Newton, I was surprised by a request of the church that I 
should accept a call to its pastorate. The request was not 
only a surprise, but gave me great anxiety. Four of the 
chief men in the church were extensive liquor-dealers. 
With the ideas of temperance then prevailing in New 
England, it seemed impossible that I could accept the 
invitation. Norfolk in those days seemed so remote from 
home, so unlike in climate and mode of life, so unlike 
everything with which I was familiar, as to make me 
reluctant to think of becoming a resident there. I returned 
to Newton by way of the historical James Eiver, and it was 
a matter of intense interest to me, sailing up that river. 
The ruins at Jamestown, the famous old plantation resi- 
dences, all excited the interest of a New Englander. I for 
the first time saw the city of Eichmond ; went to Washing- 
ton, and had the good fortune to hear Henry Clay make his 
farewell speech when he resigned his seat in the Senate in 
1842. That speech, though brief, made a lasting impression 
on my mind. The Senate itself was a most interesting 
study for a young man ; but Clay at that moment was the 
chief figure in it. His intonation and clean-cut articulation 
at once arrested my attention, and gave useful hints for public 
speaking. On returning to Newton, my friend Scott and 
myself were accustomed to go into the woods, standing 
within ear-shot of each other, and practising elocution amid 
the rustling of the leaves. The hint from Clay's speech 
served as a guide in my part of the practice. The practice 
itself was of more value to me in public speaking than any 
amount of training I could have received from professional 
elocutionists. 

The last term of my stay at Newton closed in August, 
1842. As the time for leaving the Seminary drew near, 



24 EZEKIEL GILMAN ROBINSON. 

there came the perplexing question, Should I accept the call 
from Norfolk ? Meanwhile I had been invited to preach to 
the First Church in Springfield, Massachusetts. They re- 
quested me to visit them again ; they wished me to become 
their pastor. I had agreed to come at a definite date to 
spend another Sunday with them. I decidedly preferred 
Springfield to Norfolk. On the day I was to go to Spring- 
field several of my fellow-students gathered in my room ; 
conversation abounded; I was delayed, to the last moment 
in starting for the train, and came in sight of it just as it 
was moving out of the station. There was no way of reach- 
ing Springfield in time for morning service, and no telegraph 
to give explanation. Returning to the Seminary, I was shut 
up to fulfil a promise of reply to the call from Norfolk. 
Consulting with Dr. Sears, he advised me to accept the 
Norfolk call. The Norfolk call was accepted with many 
misgivings. Just the accident of those fellows chaffing 
changed the whole current of my life. If I hadn't gone to 
Norfolk, I shouldn't have gone to Covington; if I hadn't 
gone to Covington, I shouldn't have gone to Eochester. 
Perhaps I was a little superstitious about it, but I regarded 
my disappointment in visiting Springfield as an indication 
of Divine Providence that I should go to Virginia. 

NOTE. 

REMINISCENCES BY FELLOW-STUDENTS. (See p. 13.) 

What manner of man Dr. Robinson was held to be in col- 
lege days may be learned from fellow-students. His class- 
mate, the Rt. Rev. Alexander Burgess, S. T. D., L.L.D., 
Bishop of Quincy, writes : — 

" I was the youngest of my college class, but eighteen at gradua- 
tion. My home was in Providence. I studied at home, and went 
to the college buildings very seldom, except for prayers and recita- 



CHILDHOOD AND EDUCATION. 25 

tion. So I had less opportunity than others of the class to associate 
with Robinson evenings and at students' meetings. . . . 

" Robinson and I became close friends by his visits at my father's 
house and my driving him out to his home on Saturdays, about eight 
miles distant. lie certainly was indifferently prepared on entrance. 
He was slow in his perception or thought, apparently. I may men- 
tion, as a proof of this, he sat in the class three above me. Between 
us were two of the least exact scholars. When a question was missed 
by one just above him, he seldom could collect himself sufficiently to 
answer immediately, and it became a saying, ' If Jenks fails, Burgess 
will be the first to stop the " Unprepared," ' that is the answer by him 
and the next two. With time to gather himself up, he commonly 
recited well, yet ended with a rank, if I recollect right, next to the 
middle. He did not show plainly the signs of the wonderful abilities 
which were subsequently developed. I was too young and immature 
to observe what was not plainly manifest in him. It should be noted 
that Dr. Wayland, twenty years or less later, said that ' the scholar- 
ship of the class was higher than any for ten or twelve years.' 

"Robinson did not excel during college days in that which he 
afterward termed ' ability to think on your legs.' But he was posi- 
tive and earnest in the few words he did say in debate. . . . His 
' lack of polish and grace ' we students marked without criticism. . . . 
He was ever good-tempered, fair and just and without jealousy. 

"Now that fifty years and more have passed and the history of 
each member of our class of about thirty-three has been put on record, 
he who showed low rank in scholarship and personality at the start, is 
acknowledged in advance greatly of most, and perhaps really of all, at 
the near goal. ... If love and deep admiration and class pride were 
alone required to refresh memory and to paint the past as it really 
was, my paper would be all you could ask." 

Another classmate, the Rev. J. C. Stockbridge, D.D., said 
in a memorial address : — 

' ' I am sure I do my classmate no injustice when I say that he was 
not ... a brilliant class-room student. . . . There were lines of study 
outside of the regular college curriculum in which he interested himself. 
We all recognized him as being a skilful debater on themes of popular 
interest. . . . Another of our classmates, the now Hon. George Van 
Ness Lothrop . . . was a member of the same society, fond of debate, 
and, if I remember aright, generally pitted against Robinson, and 
both alike the subjects of good-natured college criticism as to which 



26 EZEKIEL GILMAN ROBINSON. 

was the better and more skilful intellectual athlete in the Society 
Rooms. . . . 

"At length the time for graduation came. The part assigned to 
our friend was a philosophical dissertation, its subject being ' The 
Value of Metaphysical Speculations.' It was not among the highest 
of the parts assigned, but it needed not a prophet's ken to forecast 
what, if life and health were vouchsafed by kind Providence, would 
be the future career of the speaker. . . . The youthful aspirant for 
the honors of the University stood on the spacious platform, in front 
of the pulpit, with his finely developed physique, and in that impas- 
sioned manner, which seemed so natural to him when he was thor- 
oughly aroused, repeated those thrilling lines from Campbell's 
' Pleasures of Plope ' in which the poet dwells on the dreary fruits of 
an unhallowed scepticism : — 

' Are these the pompous tidings ye proclaim, 
Lights of the world, and demigods of fame ? ' " 

A third classmate, the late Professor J. W. P. Jenks, wrote : 

" 1 came to my present position in college in '71, he to the presi- 
dency in '72, I think. Not long after he came, as we were having a 
social chat and speaking of our college days, he said, 'My whole ca- 
reer in college is a myth, as I try to recall it. I was troubled through- 
out the course with dyspepsia, and I never saw one well day in the 
four years.' I was much pleased to hear that statement from his own 
lips, — not that he was an invalid, but that his physical condition ac- 
counted for his cynical disposition and tendeucy ... to severe criticism 
of the efforts of others. I never received the impression that he thought 
himself superior to others, but he gave us reason to think he enjoyed 
making us feel bad by sharp retort. . . . According to my experience 
with men, such a disposition is apt to be a characteristic of dyspeptics. 

" . . . As to his scholarship, he ranked just above the middle of the 
class, if I remember rightly, and as far as I can recall never impressed 
any of his classmates as possessing unusual talent. 

" But what I am now to relate will be of interest to you. He grad- 
uated from Newton about a month before my closing a four years' 
course of teaching in Georgia. Calling soon after my return upon 
Rev. J. W. Parker, D. D., at Cambridgeport, he remarked, ' Do you 
know that your classmate Robinson has impressed us all as being the 
most acute metaphysician that ever graduated from Newton, surpass- 
ing all his college classmates in the development of his intellectual 
powers ? ' I replied, ' You greatly surprise me, as one of his classmates, 



CHILDHOOD AND EDUCATION. 27 

for I should have named half a dozen or more of the class that gave 
greater promise than he.' " 

A contemporary in college recollects Mr. Robinson as "a 
young man of promising talents, but of much independence, 
strong, self-reliant, and not disposed to warm attachments 
with other students. I remember hearing the phrase 'the 
iron man' applied to him by some of the students. Whether 
they were his friends or not I cannot say." 

This impression is interesting as coming from a warm- 
hearted Southerner who wishes to remain anonymous, and 
who belonged to a class enough lower to represent the current 
opinion of the college. As to the general bearing of Mr. Rob- 
inson in these days, one of the writers above quoted says that 
the words " awkward and shy " if used without emphasis would 
be fairly descriptive. Another describes him as in college 
" an awkward and immature country lad." But the powerful 
mind, and energetic personality of the student broke away from 
these limitations so soon at latest as a definite purpose in life 
had been formed and professional study begun. Perhaps he 
did not mature early ; but nothing more characteristic or more 
honorable could be said of any one than what President Wes- 
ton says of Dr. Robinson, whom he knew from college days 
onward : — 

" I met Dr. Robinson at intervals all his life, and always found that 
he had been growing. In later years he mellowed. It is probably 
an illustration of his growth that the awkwardness and shyness which 
his classmates speak of, had disappeared by the time he was a Junior, 
and I entered college. I remember those men distinctly; and while 
Robinson lacked the grace and suavity of some, he always seemed 
to me intellectually the peer of any." 

Another acquaintance of a somewhat later period in his 
student-life declares that while he was never awkward, he was 
always shy. — Ed. 



28 EZEKIEL GILMAN ROBINSON. 



CHAPTEE II. 

PASTOEATES AND THE COVINGTON PROFESSORSHIP. 
1842-1853. 

IN the early autumn, packing up my belongings, I 
started to become pastor of the Cumberland Street 
Baptist Church at Norfolk. I was ordained in November, 
1842, Dr. Jeter of Eichmond preaching the ordination ser- 
mon. Everything in my new position bore the stamp of 
novelty. One of my first and somewhat embarrassing 
experiences there was at a funeral. I found myself, when 
starting for the grave, decorated with a long, flowing white 
sash, my hat bound around with a white band streaming far 
behind me, and with white gloves. I was placed in an open 
carriage beside the undertaker. It seemed to me that every 
eye was turned on me as a. ridiculous spectacle. The under- 
taker assured me that every minister was so arrayed. My 
second odd experience was the baptism of a very low-born 
and low-bred white woman who had for a year or more been 
a standing candidate for baptism. The church had held her 
case in abeyance until it had a pastor. Baptism could be , 
administered only at high tide. The tide would be high 
enough at six o'clock in the morning. With deacons and 
a few friends we started for the place of baptism. The poor 
woman was overjoyed at the fulfilment of her long deferred 
wishes. Emerging from the water at baptism, she bounded 
from my hands, splashing the water, shouting and screaming 
hallelujahs. Seizing and trying to calm her, I led her to 



PASTORATES AND COVINGTON PROFESSORSHIP. 29 

the shore ; but the one of my deacons who was to have 
received her, when he saw her coming, turned and fled. 

Settling down to serious pastoral work, more than enough 
to fill my mind and hands at once presented itself. I was 
disturbed at the selling of liquor by the leading deacon of 
the church and by three others of its prominent members. 
They assured me that I should have perfect liberty of speech 
on temperance or any other subject that I might wish to 
speak on, — a liberty which I was not slow to use. I gave 
lectures to my own people on temperance. After one of 
these lectures, an impetuous member of the church came to 
me and said, " Now, pastor, we understand you, and are 
ready for action. We propose to exclude these liquor- 
dealers from the church. " My reply was, " My dear sir, 
you do not quite understand me. I have faith in the power 
of truth and honest conviction much greater than I have 
in hasty church action. Let us wait. These brethren are 
honest and faithful ; we must wait till they see their way 
to abandon the traffic. " The peace and harmony of the 
church remained perfectly undisturbed. In the church 
were several elderly widows who were true " mothers in 
Israel. " The coddling to which these dear old mothers sub- 
jected me in the first year of my ministry exposed me to 
perils of effeminacy from which I barely escaped. The five 
to eight cups of Old Hyson tea of an evening gave a fillip to 
my nerves, from which they were long in recovering. Take 
it all in all, the first year of my pastorate was as happy as 
it could well have been.* 

In the spring of the first year of it I was invited to serve 
a year as chaplain at the University of Virginia, beginning 
in the following autumn. It was then the custom to invite 
chaplains alternately from the four principal denominations 
of the State, — Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Baptists, and 



30 EZEKIEL GILMAN KOBINSON. 

Methodists. With my very brief experience in the min- 
istry, it seemed risky to accept the position. On strong 
encouragement from others, I ventured to accept. It proved 
to me a very profitable year. With my slender resources I 
found very little time for attending to any department of 
study in the University, and was obliged to give most of my 
time to preparation for my work as chaplain. I was required 
to preach once on Sunday, and to lecture in the chapel each 
Wednesday evening. Fortunately for my after work I gave 
a weekly lecture on the Gospel of John, making the best use 
I could of such sources as were within my reach. The 
encouragement received from the professors gave me a self- 
confidence in which I was still sadly lacking. The 
University of Virginia was never manned by teachers 
more distinguished or able than some of those then in 
its faculty. Among these was the famous law-lecturer, 
Henry St. George Tucker, half-brother of John Eandolph ; 
also Professor George Tucker, the intimate friend and 
biographer of Jefferson ; William B. Eogers, a very bril- 
liant lecturer, afterwards president of the Boston School 
of Technology; Dr. William B. Cabell; Gessner Harrison, 
the distinguished professor of Latin, and father-in-law of Dr. 
John A. Broadus, with many others. 

During my stay at the University occurred an event which 
has more materially than any other event affected my whole 
subsequent life. I was married to the lady whom I had 
known from her school -girl days, Miss Harriet Eichards 
Parker, to whom I have been more indebted than to any 
one or all other persons whom I have known in life. At 
the close of the University year my wife and I made a trip 
to White Sulphur and other springs, to the Natural Bridge 
and to Weyer's Cave, thence by stage down the Shenandoah 
valley to Winchester, Harper's Ferry, and so on to New 



PASTORATES AND COVINGTON PROFESSORSHIP. 31 

England. In the autumn we returned to Norfolk, and I 
resumed my pastoral duties, the church having been mean- 
while under the care of a young student of theology, 
J. W. M. Williams, who has since distinguished himself 
in a life -long pastorate in the city of Baltimore. I 
resumed pastoral work with redoubled interest. Duties 
multiplied, and I began to be called on for outside work. 
In the month of August I was urgently requested to visit 
a church in one of the counties of the southeastern part of 
the State, on the borders of North Carolina. They were 
kind enough to tell me while there that in no place perhaps 
this side of New Orleans malaria more prevailed than in 
their town. I was obliged to take the train at midnight to 
return home. Not long after, I had a serious attack of 
bilious fever. It was the beginning of a malarial affection 
which has followed me all my life since. 1 

A call had come to me from a newly formed church in 
Old Cambridge, Massachusetts, to become their pastor. The 
church at Norfolk made earnest remonstrances against my 
leaving there. They offered to make my salary $1400, 
with a two months' vacation in the summer, which was a 
very generous offer for that time, and a much better one than 
came from the Cambridge church. But the climate was 
evidently undermining my constitution; and, endeared as 
the church had become to me, and attractive as life in 

1 The author meant to give some account of the last meeting of the 
Baptist Triennial Convention before the Southern Baptists withdrew. It 
was held in Philadelphia in 1844, and was attended by the youthful pastor 
from Norfolk. The most notable scene was in a meeting of the Home 
Mission Society. " I remember," writes Mrs. Robinson, " his graphic descrip- 
tions of the confusion and turmoil of the meeting, and of the futile efforts, 
both painful and ludicrous, of the poor, excited old gentleman who presided 
... to preserve order." It was then that " Brother Jeter had the floor," and 
he held it for thirty minutes before he got a chance to make himself heard. 
See chapter xlvi. in Jeter's " Recollections of a Long Life." — Ed. 



32 EZEKIEL GILMAN ROBINSON. 

Virginia in many respects was, to a New England man 
slavery was not one of its attractive features. 

In the early autumn I became the pastor, the first pastor 
it had had, of the Baptist church at Cambridge. When I 
went to them, they were worshipping in a hall. Their 
house of worship was then in process of building on a site 
since bought by Harvard University, where now stands its 
Gymnasium. I seemed to have found an ideal place for a 
life-work. The surroundings and proximity of Harvard 
College and the library gave it special attraction. One 
Sunday there came into the service two men who bore 
unmistakable marks of being clergymen, one of whom 
was the Eev. Dr. Putnam, a Unitarian from Salem. They 
had evidently come to see what these Baptists were ventur- 
ing to do under the eaves of Harvard College. Dr. Putnam, 
in a kindly, perhaps half-patronizing way, said to one of the 
deacons something complimentary concerning their pastor's 
sermon. Poor man ! he took alarm, suspecting that the 
sermon which a Unitarian clergyman could approve must 
have some sad defects. This, added to the fact that I had 
previously been the pastor of a church many or most of whose 
members were slaveholders, gave him much uneasiness ; but 
the great body of the church were as loyal and faithful par- 
ishioners as any young minister was ever blessed with. 

I was happy in my pastorate ; but as the summer was 
approaching, occurred an event that filled me with dismay, 
coming like a thunderbolt from a clear sky, — my wife was 
attacked with a violent hemorrhage of the lungs, from 
which she recovered slowly, having been brought very 
near to death's door. Our doctor said she must, as soon 
as possible, get away from the sea-coast, where the air was 
too stimulating for her lungs. My hopes of a long pas- 
torate were suddenly dashed. Just then, one day our door- 



PASTORATES AND COVINGTON PROFESSORSHIP. 33 

bell rang, when in walked Eev. Dr. Hubert E. Pattison, 
once president of Waterville College, Maine, but then at 
the head of the theological institution which had been 
founded by Baptists of the Northwest at Covington, Ken- 
tucky, on the Ohio Eiver, opposite to Cincinnati. He said 
he had just come from Providence, where he had been in 
consultation with Dr. Wayland, with the demand that I 
should go with him to Covington as professor of Hebrew. 
I told him of the condition of my wife's health, and that I 
could give him no answer without consultation with medical 
advisers. Mrs. Robinson went with me to the office of Dr. 
Oliver Wendell Holmes, then regarded as a specialist in 
pulmonary diseases, and also coming into notice as a poet, 
especially for Commencement occasions. I remember his 
little dingy office off Tremont Street. He then gave small 
promise to a casual observer of becoming the famous " Auto- 
crat of the Breakfast-Table, " or one of the foremost poets of 
America. He detected no disease of the lungs, but agreed 
with Dr. Wyman that we ought not to live near the sea. 
In answer to the inquiry about Covington, he replied that it 
was in the same latitude with Washington, and would do 
very well as a place of residence for my wife. It was de- 
cided that I should accept the professorship at Covington. 

Our household goods were packed and shipped, by way of 
New Orleans and the Mississippi and Ohio rivers, to Cin- 
cinnati. My good and life-long friend, Henry R Glover of 
Cambridge, insisted upon paying the expense of packing and 
freight. After spending nearly a month at my wife's home 
with Deacon Caleb Parker, secretary of the Board of Trustees 
of Newton Theological Institution from 1837 to 1854, we 
started for Covington on the first of October, — a journey of 
no slight difficulty in Mrs. Piobinson's state of health. We 
travelled by boat and rail, by way of New York and Phila- 



34 EZEKIEL GILMAN KOBINSON. 

delphia, to Harrisburg. There we took a canal-boat, follow- 
ing the Juniata to the base of the Alleghanies. In a recent 
journey on the well -equipped vestibule train of the Penn- 
sylvania Eailroad, my wife and I traced the remains of the 
old canal, reviving the vivid memories of nearly half a 
century ago. One accustomed only to the spacious and 
elegant accommodations of the modern steamboat can have 
little conception of the stuffiness and confinement of canal 
passenger-boats. But it was leisurely journeying, amid 
magnificent scenery with its autumnal coloring, and afforded 
abundant opportunity for exercise along the tow-path. On 
reaching the terminus of the canal, the boat, which consisted 
of two sections, was drawn by a stationary engine up an 
inclined plane, and by the same process was let down the 
western slope into another canal, which took us to Pitts- 
burg. We reached Pittsburg in the evening, a thousand 
open mouths of flame seeming to welcome us to the dingy 
city, — a weird picture, that still lingers in my memory. 
On the following morning I made diligent inquiries for a 
steamboat to take us down the Ohio to Cincinnati. Six 
days had already passed since we left Boston. The Ohio 
Eiver was at so low a stage of water as to seem almost un- 
navigable. A solitary stern-wheeled steamer was advertised 
to leave that day. We engaged passage. We were assured 
that the boat, drawing only twenty-four inches of water, 
could easily cross the sand-bars. There was, for the little 
boat, a large crowd of passengers, among whom were several 
Southwestern planters, eager to reach their homes. On 
the afternoon of October seventh we started down the river. 
While yet in sight of the city, we came to a well-loaded 
keel-boat, which was fast aground. Our captain, with what 
seemed to me an astonishing degree of kindness, threw them 
a hawser to haul them off. It required but a few hours to 



PASTORATES AND COVINGTON PROFESSORSHIP. 35 

discover that this keel-boat, which had been sent down the 
river ahead of us, was a part of our boat's belongings, to be 
towed to Cincinnati. For several ensuing days a large part 
of our time was consumed in getting aground and pulling 
off. Eepeatedly our captain or first mate would leap from 
the bow with a hawser, wade ashore, and hitch to a tree or 
post, and then, by aid of windlass or engine, strive to haul 
off. Some six or seven days were thus spent in reaching 
Wheeling. We there met a steamer coming up the river. 
Our hot-headed Southerners, who for days had been on the 
verge of an outbreak, attempted to charter the upward-bound 
boat to take us to Cincinnati. After long and angry dis- 
cussion, it was finally decided that we should all remain 
where we were. Copious rains seemed to promise that we 
could go on without further delay. We reached Cincinnati 
on the sixteenth of October, sixteen days from the city of 
Boston. Words fail to describe the relief and satisfaction 
with which at last we found ourselves in the hospitable 
mansion of Dr. Pattison at Covington. This mansion was 
the home of the owner of the large plantation which the 
Institution had bought, the rising value of which constituted 
the Institution's chief endowment. Near by stood the main 
building of the Seminary, containing recitation-rooms and 
dormitories. 

The Faculty with whom I was associated consisted of Dr. 
Pattison and Professor Asa Drury. The classes I was to 
instruct had been waiting for my coming, and my work was 
to begin without the loss of a day. With fear and trem- 
bling I went to my lecture-room.. I was thirty-two years 
of age, and with as meagre an outfit for the work I had 
undertaken as can well be imagined. My regularly appointed 
work was to teach Hebrew, though I spent all the spare time 
I could command in brushing up my Greek. I remember 



36 EZEKIEL GILMAN EOBINSON. 

no period of my life in which I worked harder or with more 
satisfaction. In Hebrew I remember to have made written 
translations of earlier chapters of Isaiah and of the whole of 
Micah. 

On reaching Covington I found that Dr. Pattison and 
various of his friends from Cincinnati had organized what 
was called the Walnut Street Baptist Church. It wor- 
shipped in the main hall of the University of Cincinnati. 
It was arranged that Dr. Pattison and I should preach for 
this church alternately, — 'he in the morning of one Sunday, 
and I in the afternoon ; on the following Sunday I in the 
morning, and he in the afternoon. With the duties of my 
professorship I had, of course, no time for sermon-making, 
and simply fell back on what I had accumulated in my four 
years as pastor. 

My second year at Covington, the third in the history of 
the Institution, opened with bright prospects and an increased 
number of students. But dark clouds were gathering about 
the horizon. The one disturbing and threatening element 
was slavery. The Kentuckians were dissatisfied with some 
of Dr. Pattison's utterances on this question, and during the 
year appealed to their legislature to amend the charter of the 
Institution by adding ten Kentuckians to the number of its 
Trustees. At the first meeting of this new board Dr. Patti- 
son was summarily dismissed from office. A committee of 
six, with Rev. Dr. Dillard as chairman, Dr. Campbell, a 
Scotchman, president of Georgetown College, and four 
others, was appointed to wait upon other members of the 
Faculty. This committee came to my house with the ques- 
tion whether I recognized the authority of the new board. I 
replied that this was not one of the questions belonging to 
my chair as professor of Hebrew ; that I had come from New 
England with definitely prescribed duties, among which, I 



PASTORATES AND COVINGTON PROFESSORSHIP. 37 

was sure, was not an answer to that kind of question. A 
variety of similar questions was gravely propounded by the 
chairman, to which similarly evasive answers were given. 
As they grew impatient, I said : " There is a question, 
gentlemen, to which I can give a definite answer : it is 
whether I am willing to work in connection with, or under 
the direction of, men who are capable of what you have 
done. This, most definitely, in the negative. I have 
known something of violent abolitionists in the North, and 
by the grace of God have succeeded in keeping them at arm's 
length. All you have to do is to change places with that 
kind of men to change characters with them. I have no 
disposition to work with either class. " I never saw six 
men jump more suddenly or more simultaneously to their 
feet. I was indignant, and they were not less so. That 
ended my connection with what was known as the Western 
Theological Institution of Covington, Kentucky. It was 
virtually the breaking up of the Institution ; for, though the 
Kentuckians took possession of it with the purpose of carry- 
ing forward its work, very little, if anything, was accom- 
plished. 1 What became of the property, which was regarded 
as a handsome endowment, I never knew. The buildings, I 
was informed, passed into the hands of the Roman Catholics. 

Of the students who were at the Institution while I was 
there, several have achieved honorable distinction. Among 
these were Eev. Eufus C. Burleson, 1). D. , LL. D. , for the 
past forty-two years president of Baylor University, Texas ; 
Bev. William Ashmore, D.D. , our well-known missionary 
to China ; the Rev. John R. Downer, formerly professor in 
Denison University ; and others successful as pastors. 

While I was at Covington I heard, for the first time, the 

1 The Institute opened in September, 1845, with Dr. Pattison as president. 
He and Professor Robinson withdrew in June, 1848. Dr. S. W. Lynd was 
then made president by the new Board of Trustees. See Appendix II. — Ed. 



38 EZEKIEL GILMAN ROBINSON. 

celebrated Dr. Lyman Beecher, and recognized the origin of 
certain peculiarities discernible in those days among the 
younger Congregational ministers of New England. One of 
them was a peculiar method of reading a hymn, striking 
the middle of the line with a peculiar ictus and pause. 
The glory of his earlier preaching had begun very percep- 
tibly to fail. 

My association with Dr. Pattison, whose ministrations 
I had attended at the First Church in Providence while 
a student in Brown University, was of the pleasantest. 
He was genial, warm-hearted, frank, a most agreeable col- 
league both as professor and as pastor. He never preached 
more effectively, with more unction and satisfaction, than 
during the two years that we served the Walnut Street 
Church. His mind, however, had a singular capacity for 
forgetfulness. As an amusing instance of this, he had a 
pet sermon, which he preached on a given Sunday, and re- 
peated two weeks afterward, wholly forgetting that he had 
previously delivered it. I would sometimes refer to a book 
which I knew that he had read, when he would reply that 
he knew nothing whatever about it. One book, however, 
probably more influenced him and his thinking than any 
other : this was Jonathan Edwards on the Christian Affec- 
tions. He went from Covington to the professorship of 
Theology at Newton. 

On the breaking up of the Institution at Covington the 
question came, What should I do next ? The little Walnut 
Street Church, to which Dr. Pattison and I had ministered 
two years gratuitously, gave little or no promise of ultimate 
success. It lacked homogeneity, having been made up in 
a considerable degree of malcontents from other churches. 
In the way of its success stood another formidable obstacle : 
Dr. E. L. Magoon, then pastor of the Ninth Street Baptist 



PASTORATES AND COVINGTON PROFESSORSHIP. 39 

Church of Cincinnati, had, with his friends, initiated a 
movement for a new church to be constituted of members 
from the Ninth Street Church. Just then I had an invita- 
tion to become pastor of the First Baptist Church in Roches- 
ter, New York. I was greatly inclined to go, and had about 
made up my mind to do so, when a committee from the 
Ninth Street Church waited upon me, insisting that I should 
remain in Cincinnati. The project of a new church for Dr. 
Magoon hung fire. At that juncture he accepted an invita- 
tion to become pastor of the Oliver Street Church in New 
York for six months, during which his friends in Cincinnati 
were to complete their organization of a new church for him. 
The proposition for me was to become pastor of the Ninth 
Street Church. The position was anything but an inviting 
one. While the Walnut Street Church was to disband, the 
most of them going to Ninth Street, I was invited to become 
pastor of a church no small portion of which were simply 
waiting for Dr. Magoon to return from New York. It re- 
quired no little persuasion to induce me to accept the call. 

An attempt on my part to follow Dr. Magoon seemed to 
promise nothing but disappointment and disaster. His 
brilliancy as a preacher, his great popularity as a man, had 
given him a thronging congregation. He was then at the 
height of his popularity. I had known him from the day 
that I went as a youth to the New Hampton Academy, 
which he was just then leaving for Waterville College. 
Dr. Magoon was a man of remarkable natural endowment, 
possessed of poetic fancy, intense energy, a strong intellect, 
and, under proper discipline, might and ought to have been 
one of the most distinguished men of his day. But from the 
outset of his education he had persisted in devoting his 
attention to such studies only as best pleased his fancy. 
He did this throughout his college course, as also at the 



40 EZEKIEL GILMAN ROBINSON. 

Newton Theological Institution. A voracious and indis- 
criminate reader, compiling tomes of extracts from all possi- 
ble sources, lie accumulated an almost measureless mass of 
chaotic materials, from which he was accustomed to draw 
freely in preparing his sermons. But to severe mental dis- 
cipline, whether in mathematical, philosophical, or rhetorical 
studies, he seemed to owe as little as was possible for a man 
who could be said to have a liberal education. His power 
over an audience of untrained minds was at times simply 
prodigious. His success as a preacher when in Virginia 
was one of the marvels of the day. While abroad, in the 
interval between his life in Virginia and his coming to Cin- 
cinnati, he had made himself familiar with the French lan- 
guage, and had become a devout admirer of Lacordaire, the 
great French preacher at Notre Dame, in Paris. He had 
collected a large library of both French and English works. 
His preaching bore evident marks of his wide and varied 
reading ; but I have scarcely known an educated man whose 
productions gave more striking evidence of an undiscrimi- 
nating mind, either in thought or expression. In his public 
ministry he would sometimes soar to heights of almost 
unsurpassed eloquence ; but the sentences following might 
be so marred by absurdities as well as grotesqueness of 
thought and bad taste in expression, as to make his audience 
blush and wish to hide their faces. 1 But with all these 

1 As an instance, I once heard him conclude one of his sermons on 
Republican Christianity, afterwards published, with a paragraph genuinely 
eloquent. It was in 1848, during the revolutions in Europe. He described 
the atmosphere of Europe as filled with the sound of falling thrones and of 
clanking chains stricken from the limbs of the enslaved. The discourse was 
followed by an abrupt transition to a prayer in which the shocking motto of 
French revolutionists, " A funeral pyre of the last throne, on which shall be 
burnt the last priest," was turned into a solemn petition to God, — the leader 
of the choir at the end striking up on his violin with one of the liveliest of 
dancing tunes. It was such a shock to my nerves that I got my head down 
in the pew and gave vent to hysterical laughter. — E. G. E. 



PASTORATES AND COVINGTON PROFESSORSHIP. 41 

defects Dr. Magoon was a wonderful master in the pulpit, 
besides being a man of the largest heart, genial in disposi- 
tion and lovable to a degree. To attempt following such a 
man as pastor seemed rashness itself ; and yet there appeared 
to be no alternative but to accept. 

Thus, in the autumn of 1848 I became pastor of the Ninth 
Street Baptist Church. In the following spring we took a 
house on Mt. Auburn, then one of the rural suburbs of Cin- 
cinnati. It was embowered with trees in full blossom. It 
seemed an earthly paradise. We had bought a pet horse 
from Deacon Bevan, and a new rockaway. Our new home 
and equipments were all that could be desired. We were 
fortunate in being out of the city. In early summer the 
cholera broke out in Cincinnati with an alarming death-rate. 
By midsummer from a hundred and fifty to a hundred and 
sixty were dying daily. In driving down to the city in the 
morning the constantly multiplying crapes upon the door- 
bells, the burning barrels of tar, and the deserted streets filled 
one with a sense of desolation and gloom. But very few of 
my own flock fell victims. Though myself every day in the 
city and among the sick, I escaped with only a slight attack 
one Monday morning. A speedy application to a city phy- 
sician by my neighbor and dear friend, Deacon Bevan, 
brought speedy relief, and I was well again. 

The summer wore on, but at the end of the six months no 
sign appeared of the formation of the new church. With a 
winter's work before me we returned to a house in the city. 
I bent myself to the winter's work to the best of my ability. 
The spring came, and there had ceased to be any further talk 
about the return of Dr. Magoon to Cincinnati. The church 
was prosperous, but the situation was unsatisfactory. The 
church was large enough for its members to be in each 
other's way ; but it was in vain that anything was said 



42 EZEKIEL GILMAN KOBINSON. 

about colonization. In my congregation were enough men 
of education to stimulate any man to his best work. Among 
these, besides several other city lawyers, was Alphonso Taft, 
afterwards Attorney-General under the administration of 
President Grant, and later still minister to St. Petersburg. 
Besides several other ministers of the gospel was John 
Stevens, who had graduated with distinguished scholarship 
at Middlebury, Vermont, and had long been, as he was also 
at that time, one of the most conspicuous leaders among the 
Baptists of Ohio, — a man of large and strong intellect, 
who, under other surroundings, might have attained to great 
distinction. He used to sit in the congregation with his 
eyes shut, apparently indifferent to all that was being said, 
and reminding me, as I used to tell him, of an old stone mill 
with its windows closed, but which kept on grinding its own 
grist in the dark. His answer was, " Pastor, I always hear 
what you say. " The number of young men in the congrega- 
tion who have since made their mark was proportionately 
large. At the end of the second year of my pastorate I 
made a list of fifteen young men with their wives, and fifteen 
unmarried women, mostly of middle age, to whom I sub- 
mitted the proposition to join with me in forming a new 
church. Too well satisfied with things as they were, and 
timid from the failure of previous attempts, they hesitated 
to join in the undertaking. 

During the third winter of the pastorate I set to work 
earnestly in the preparation and delivery of a series of dis- 
courses on Modern Scepticism. These discourses were re- 
ceived with unexpected favor, attracting large and intelligent 
congregations, including not a few avowed unbelievers. A 
request with many names called for a publication of the 
lectures, — a request to which, the lectures not having 
been written, I could not respond. The following summer 



PASTORATES AND COVINGTON PROFESSORSHIP. 43 

gave me a much needed rest and recreation in New 
England. 

The fourth winter of the pastorate opened, and my house- 
hold was darkened by an alarming illness of my wife. In 
the midst of this, my old friend, Martin B. Anderson, then 
editor of the " New York Eecorder, " made his appearance 
with an invitation to the professorship of Biblical Theology 
in Rochester University, then recently made vacant by the 
death of Dr. J. S. Maginnis. The invitation was attractive 
from the outset ; but there arose at once the question, What 
would be the influence of the climate of Rochester on the 
health of my wife ? Our family physician expressed a de- 
cided opinion that it would be beneficial. This, of course, 
disposed me to accept the invitation ; but the young friends 
to whom I had the year before proposed the formation of a 
new church, then came with alacrity to begin the under- 
taking at once. I had, however, already become convinced 
that a pastorate was not the office in which I could do the 
best work of which I was capable. My distaste for pas- 
toral duties was unconquerable, while my experience at 
Covington had given me a preference for a professorship. 
I accepted the invitation with the condition that its duties 
should be begun in the following spring. The breaking up 
of associations and friendships at Cincinnati was one of the 
painful experiences of life. 

My life at Cincinnati and in Ohio had brought me many 
pleasurable experiences. I was not wanting in sympathy 
with the efforts of the Baptists of Cincinnati and Ohio to 
re-establish, if possible, a theological institution on the 
Ohio side of the river. A company had been formed and 
had purchased a farm of one hundred and fifty or sixty acres 
just outside the city limits, with the expectation of its rapid 
rise in value and of throwing it upon the market, thereby 



44 EZEKTEL GILMAN KOBINSON. 

realizing a very handsome profit. Ten acres of the land, 
which had been designated as Fairmount, had been set apart 
for the new institution, and on this had been erected a 
handsome building for the so-called Fairmount Theological 
Institution. I was asked to become one of its professors, 
but could not persuade myself to accept the offer. The 
company purchasing the land had divided it into ten shares. 
Two of the company, over-anxious for profits, had assumed 
to carry two shares each. I became the purchaser of a 
half-share. Parts of the land, platted into house -lots, were 
distributed to the shareholders as successive payments were 
made on the mortgage, other lots being offered at auction to 
the public. The sales did not realize expectations. It 
speedily became evident that the members of the company 
who had assumed two shares each could not carry their 
loads. Payments on the mortgage were defaulted; fore- 
closure seemed inevitable. Desperately, but in vain, I 
sought to have my half-share released by paying my share 
of the original stock ; but both mortgagors and mortgagees 
objected. The whole property, it was said, must be held 
responsible for the mortgage. The few thousands I had 
paid in seemed hopelessly sunk, to my own lasting embar- 
rassment. The house and lot provided for the Fairmount 
Theological Institution were purchased by Germans and 
turned into a beer-garden and shooting-gallery. The 
closing up "of the affairs of the company has been a com- 
plicated and almost life-long series of transactions. 

NOTE. 

METHOD OF PREPARING SERMONS. 

If Dr.' Robinson had found opportunity to look over his 
autobiography, he would have added to it at various points ; 
and it was hoped that he would tell the curious story of how 



PASTORATES AND COVINGTON PROFESSORSHIP. 45 

he first came to preach extempore. But he never found the 
opportunity. A letter from Mrs. Robinson makes good the 
deficiency at this point in a way that throws more light upon 
the habits of the Doctor's mind than his reticence would have 
allowed him to give. At the time referred to he was a stu- 
dent in Newton. 

" I think Mr. Robinson was to go some little distance to preach, 
and looking for the sermon he was intending to take with him, found 
his whole collection — not a very large one, I fancy — gone. On in- 
quiry he found that the other students had met with similar losses. 
The sermons had obviously been stolen, but no one ever knew who 
the culprit was. It is true that his success in the pulpit at that par- 
ticular time encouraged other attempts to preach with only brief 
notes, and that finally even these were not taken into the pulpit, as 
his confidence in himself grew. But his habit of preaching without 
notes became fixed, not so much from confidence in himself, for he 
almost always apprehended failure, as from an inveterate dislike, 
which never left him, of putting into final shape what he was pre- 
paring. He liked the active mental exercise, the ' thinking out,' but 
he disliked the slow labor of setting his thoughts down ; and he 
would postpone, on the plea that they still needed the inward work 
until it was too late to write and give them outward shape. 
Finally he resigned himself to the habit formed, and only wrote down 
heads for future use, writing these as often after speaking as before." 

In another letter Mrs. Robinson shows with what care her 
husband prepared for the pulpit : — 

" In his earliest days Mr. Robinson, besides the heads of a sermon, 
would write out the introduction, or perhaps the first head or a part 
of it, and have the manuscript before him in the pulpit ; but he found 
the transition from the written page to unsupported direct address 
difficult and embarrassing, and he soon gave up writing anything 
except the skeleton, for pulpit use. His mind became ' hidebound,' 
to use his own frequent expression, when he began a sermon depend- 
ing on his manuscript. But though he did n't write out, he spoke out 
his sermons while preparing them; not, of course, declaiming, but 
talking them over, thought by thought, as these came to him, and 
then as they arranged themselves or grew clear in the process of think- 
ing. Almost invariably he went over the whole sermon, the heads 
and the principal points under them, before leaving the house for the 
church, where on entering he would often say in real anxiety of mind, 



46 EZEKIEL GILMAN ROBINSON". 

' I am not half prepared.' Of course this was not true of the more 
recent years, when, as a father with his children, he was intent only 
on instructing his congregation." 

Incidents related by Mr. E. R. Andrews, the publisher of 
Dr. Robinson's " Theology," illustrate his readiness to meet an 
emergency when there was no time for special preparation. 
The first occurred at an early period in his Rochester life. 

" The pastor of the First Baptist Church was to be absent for a 
Sunday, and had engaged Professor Raymond to supply the pulpit. 
The ' genial Professor ' not only forgot the engagement, but also for- 
got to attend the morning service. A Quaker meeting was held until 
eleven o'clock, when, as the preacher had not arrived, Deacon Orren 
Sage went to Dr. Robinson, who was sitting in his pew, and asked 
him to occupy the pulpit. He cheerfully complied, and preached a 
sermon which was listened to with delight by the congregation. 

" Another instance of a somewhat similar character occurred in 
1865. In that year he preached the Thanksgiving sermon, it being 
the first after the close of the Civil War, to the united congregations 
of all the Baptist churches in the city, in the First Baptist Church. 
It was a broad, statesmanlike address, and was listened to with feel- 
ings of deepest interest and admiration, from its opening to its close. 
He was then asked to furnish a copy for publication. His reply was, 
' Why, there is not a syllable of it written, and I have not time to 
write it out. I went home last night and sat down to select the 
hymns for the service, and went to sleep while doing it. The thoughts 
are not altogether new, but the only time that- 1 had to arrange the 
address was while I was shaving myself this morning to come to 
church.' " 

Another incident related by Mr. Andrews exhibits the Doc- 
tor's contempt for laziness and foppery. To help a beneficiary 
he gave him the job of mailing the "Christian Review." 

" About an hour afterward the young man left, his work undone. 
A couple of days later the Doctor appeared and found the work 
unfinished. Straightening himself up to his full height, and with an 
expression of indignation, of which he is a master, he exclaimed, 
' He does n't amount to anything ; he carries a cane ! ' ' 

It is a question about which no small difference of opinion 
is found among Dr. Robinson's friends, at what period he 



PASTORATES AND COVINGTON PROFESSORSHIP. 47 

exhibited his greatest power as a preacher. Professor Wilkin- 
son regarded the sermons on scepticism, delivered shortly 
after Dr. Robinson became professor in Rochester, as the 
highest reach of his success as an orator ; but Dr. Sage, who 
heard the sermons when delivered to the Ninth Street Church 
in Cincinnati, thought them incomparably more effective than 
when repeated in Rochester. Another observer used to insist 
that the Doctor was never the same man after his typhoid 
fever in 18G3, when he was at the age of forty -eight ; but some 
of the nearest friends of his long life declared that he had 
never before equalled the sermons delivered in Philadelphia 
when he was past seventy-five. Certainly they had rarely 
been so touching, and it is likely that never before in all his 
long experience the young people flocked lovingly around him 
at the close of the sermon as they did in those months of ser- 
vice for the Memorial and the Fifth Baptist Churches. It 
surprised him to be so received, and surprised some who looked 
on ; but the austere face wore a gentle look for the young folk 
who trusted him and thanked him. — Ed. 



48 EZEKIEL GILMAN ROBINSON. 



CHAPTER III. 

THE ROCHESTER PROFESSORSHIP AND PRESIDENCY. 
1853-1866. 

IN the spring of 1853 we packed our household goods and 
started for Eochester, 1 New York. We took a cottage 
with ample grounds and fruit-trees ; and language fails to ex- 
press the satisfaction and relief from the sense of care with 
which I found myself in my new home. My wife speedily 
regained her health, and I addressed myself with energy to 
my new duties. The very skies and the atmosphere, so un- 
like those of Cincinnati, inspired me with an ever-increasing 
exhilaration of spirit. My real work as a teacher could not 
then begin, as the academic year was on its last term. The 
most that I could undertake was a course of homiletic in- 
struction to the graduating class in Theology. Dr. Conant 
had read to them during the year the manuscript lectures in 
Theology left by the deceased Dr. Maginnis ; but they had 
received no homiletic instruction. I set the whole class 
at the preparation and delivery of sermons. The literary 

1 "He was thirty-eight years of age, in the full vigor and activity of 
rohust manhood, although many silvery threads were even then gracing his 
head. He came upon the promise of a salary of $1200 a year, and a small 
addition for some special instruction ; and such was the financial condition 
of the Seminary that as late as 1867, notwithstanding the high cost of living 
during the war, and his intense devotion to the interest of the Seminary, his 
salary had not heen increased to more than $2000. I have said that $1200 
was promised him ; but much of the time it was not paid promptly, except in 
promissory notes, to be paid at maturity, or renewed, as the exigency of the 
time compelled." (From an address by E. R. Andrews, Esq.) 



ROCHESTER PROFESSORSHIP AND PRESIDENCY. 49 

instruction they had received had by no means made them 
all master -workmen. The exercises, whether profitable to 
them or not, were specially useful to myself. They gave 
me opportunity to take a long breath in thinking of the 
work which I was to assume the coming autumn, and also 
to prepare what was absurdly called an Inaugural Address, 
to be delivered at the coining Commencement. It had been 
instilled into my mind by continuous iteration that what- 
ever I should say in that address must be distinctively and 
pre-eminently orthodox. The jealousies created by the abor- 
tive attempt to transfer the institution bodily from Hamil- 
ton to Eochester had divided the churches into two opposing 
camps. Even a suspicion of heterodoxy, it was feared, 
would be fatal to the Eochester interest. I accordingly 
prepared an address on the need of Christian experience 
to a right understanding of theological doctrine. It was 
printed in the " Christian Eeview" under the title of 
" Experimental Theology, " rather than " Experiential, " as 
it should have been. That enabled me to steer clear of 
both Scylla and Charybdis. President Wayland of Brown 
University was one of the hearers of the address, which was 
not in disharmony with his well-known views. Whether 
from pity or from coincidence of view, the degree of Doctor 
of Divinity was conferred by Brown University at the 
following Commencement. l 

When I went to Eochester, the Eev. Justin A. Smith, since 
then the so long and so distinguished editor of the " Standard" 
at Chicago, was pastor of its First Baptist Church. Unfor- 

1 The Doctorate of Laws was afterwards conferred by Brown, and again 
by Harvard University at the celebration of its two hundred and fiftieth 
anniversary. This was a very special occasion, and those who received the 
honors of the University were all men of note. All sat upon the platform, 
and each in turn arose as his degree was conferred. It was altogether an 
imposiug array of American and European celebrities. — Ed. 

4 



50 EZEKIEL GILMAN ROBINSON. 

tunately, he soon resigned, and the church laid hold of rne 
to occupy the pulpit. I had left Cincinnati for a smaller 
salary at Eochester, and a little income from preaching did 
not come amiss. But, unfortunately, when my real work 
as teacher of Theology began in the autumn, the demands 
on me as a preacher to the First Church added materially to 
the load I was carrying. The church had heard of the lec- 
tures on Scepticism at Cincinnati, and asked for a repetition 
of them during the winter. I was thoughtless enough to 
assent to the proposition, and, but for brief notes, which 
had been taken by a lady of the congregation at Cincinnati, 
the task would have been a severe one. I may add here 
that this foolish neglect of making notes for myself has been 
one of my grievous and life-long faults. But the delivery 
of these discourses, conjoined with the preparation of the- 
ological lectures, made necessarily a laborious winter. I 
had no theological system whatever. The doctrines to be 
taught were to my mind shadowy and indefinite. I began 
my theological lectures with discussions that to me pos- 
sessed most interest, and about which I was best informed, 
the Evidences of Christianity. The views of Theodore 
Parker, published in his "Discourse of Eeligion," and of 
contemporary and corresponding schools abroad, presented 
inviting fields of inquiry. I discussed Christian Evidences 
and Inspiration con amove, wading in my personal reading 
neck-deep 'through the whole range of their speculation. 
The letters of Tholuck on Inspiration, growing out of the 
disagreement with the views of Scherer on the part of Merle 
D'Aubigne" and others, and the brochure of Coleridge, " Con- 
fessions of an Inquiring Spirit," were just then attracting 
public attention. It was the first decisive beginnings 
of the great subsequent change of view on the doctrine of 
inspiration. 



ROCHESTER PROFESSORSHIP AND PRESIDENCY. 51 

As I entered upon the special work of instruction in 
Systematic Theology, I was filled with constant solicitude 
as to how I was to teach the great doctrines of Christianity. 
There was no text-book which I could conscientiously use. 
My own views were uncertain, and in no sense constituted 
a system. There was no alternative ; by the help of such 
books as I could lay hold of, American, English, and 
German, I set to work to clarify and settle my own views. 
Reading day and night as rapidly and widely as I could, I 
wrote only such brief propositions as I could venture to 
dictate to the class, often rushing from my desk to the 
class-room before the ink of the last sentence had become 
fairly dry. Around these propositions we indulged in 
ample discussion ; but I was as much of an inquirer as 
any of the students. In all that was given, either in dicta- 
tion or discussion, I was most distinctively and guardedly 
orthodox ; but the question continually before us all was, 
not what is the orthodoxy of the sect, but what is the 
truth ? The whole course in Theology was to be completed 
in a single year. Every day I flew to my lecture-room with 
nerves all in a tremor as to what was to be the result of the 
clay's instruction. What was accomplished in that year's 
work in Theology comes back to me only as a very shadowy 
reminiscence. Some of the students whom I put upon the 
work of investigating and essay-writing very likely profited 
by the year's course ; but I more than half suspect that they 
were not altogether certain as to the views of their teacher. 
It should here be stated, however, that, in the absence of all 
provision for homiletical instruction, it became my duty to 
train the class in sermonizing. To this work one day in 
each week was given throughout the year. This weekly 
exercise in sermonizing was an immense relief from the 
laborious formulating of theological doctrines. This first 



52 EZEKIEL GILMAN KOBINSOK 

year I also taught Butler's Analogy to the Senior class in 
the University. It was a task that ought not to have been 
laid upon rne, and which at the end of the year, in 
language somewhat vehement as well as explicit, I in- 
formed the trustees of the University that nothing could 
induce me to undertake again. As may well be imagined, 
the end of that year's work brought a sense of relief which 
no words can now express. 

I entered upon the second year's work with less trepida- 
tion than upon the first. The burdens to be borne were 
considerably lessened. I was to give no undergraduate 
instruction in the University. My professorship in the 
first year had been nominally, but erroneously, regarded 
as a University professorship. The founders of the Univer- 
sity, warned by experience in Madison University, had at 
the outset determined that, instead of a theological depart- 
ment, there should be a Theological Seminary, a totally 
distinct organization, under the direction of its own board 
of trustees and faculty. of instruction. But the founders of 
the University, in raising money among the churches, had 
found it convenient to give great prominence to the value 
and need of ministerial education. On that plea the first 
and larger part of their funds were raised. The popular 
impression therefore was that the theological school was an 
organic part of the University. The confusion of ideas 
prevailed not only among the churches at large, but among 
the friends and faculty of the University. This confusion 
will explain the erroneous popular conception of the relation 
of the institutions at the outset. 

I entered upon my second year's work with renewed zeal, 
ardent expectations, and buoyant spirits. My theological 
ideas were beginning to take some defmiteness of form. 
Just then the whole intellectual atmosphere was vocal 



ROCHESTER PROFESSORSHIP AND PRESIDENCY. 53 

with discussion about the Hamiltonian doctrine of the 
relativity of knowledge. The application of this phil- 
osophical dogma to the doctrine of God was awakening 
the most animated discussion, which reached its climax 
only in years later, when Mansel had published his Bamp- 
ton lectures on the " Limits of Religious Thought. " Dr. 
Shedd's article in the "Christian Review," entitled "Sin 
a Nature, and that Nature Guilt," furnished material for 
liveliest discussions in treating of the doctrine of sin. 
These two questions among others gave special interest to 
my second year's instruction. In assigning to my class 
topics for investigation and criticism, I was myself obliged 
to read largely and rapidly in order to be fitted for an appre- 
ciation and discussion of the papers presented by them. It 
was a year of probably larger growth on my part than on 
theirs. At the close of a clay's work, the floor of my study 
was strewn with books, as though a hurricane had been 
among them. I had also entered with redoubled interest 
on the work of homiletical instruction, inducing the 
students, so far as I was able, to turn their theological 
conclusions into a homiletical use. This practice had the 
beneficial result of prompting them to look at theological 
doctrines, not so much as abstract dogmas, as living truths 
to be brought to bear on the consciences of men. This 
attempted conjunction of a study of Systematic Theology 
with a homiletic use of it was, in these early days, one of 
the distinctive peculiarities of the Rochester Theological 
Seminary. Notwithstanding the wear and tear of nerves 
by this homiletic part of my work, necessitating the minute 
examination of not less than three sermons from each mem- 
ber of the class, the work, as a whole, was the most attractive 
of anything I had ever been engaged in. The crowding of 
all this into a single year did not leave me with a large 



54 EZEKIEL GILMAN ROBINSON. 

amount of unused time ; yet, as I now look back upon it, 
I remember that I was unwise enough to be drawn into 
almost continuous Sunday preaching. 

In my third year I began work with a conscious increase 
of self-confidence. Theology did not seem so dark and 
unexplored a realm. The subjects engaging attention the 
previous year were increasingly attractive. The relativity 
of knowledge was re-examined in the attempt to find some 
determinative principle in classification of the Divine 
attributes. Among theological treatises there appeared to 
be no guiding principle, each author beginning with such 
attribute as apparently struck his fancy, or as seemed the 
fittest point of departure. In the doctrine of relativity I got 
the clew to a principle for the classification of attributes. 
The classification arranged the attributes according to the 
order of the relations through which a knowledge of the 
attributes had been obtained. These are the relations of 
God to space, time, the material universe, and man, accord- 
ing to which we discussed the attributes of immensity, 
eternity, power, wisdom, omnipresence, and holiness, 
whence genetically were derived all the moral attributes. 

The doctrine of sin was examined more minutely as 
well as extensively, and special attention was given to 
the New England doctrine that sin consisted wholly in 
action. I am afraid, as I recall the work of that year, 
that we were too extraordinarily orthodox on the doctrine 
of original sin. We not only made sin to consist in a 
state, but as at times accompanied with a consciousness on 
our part of a responsibility for its Adamic origin. 

The doctrine of atonement, which had been taught in the 
two previous years in a traditionally orthodox form, with a 
defence of the Anselmic theory, was brought under careful 
review in the light of the federal theory of Princeton on 



ROCHESTER PROFESSORSHIP AND PRESIDENCY. 55 

the one hand, and the governmental theory of Andover on 
the other. The class warmed to their work with a most 
gratifying interest, and did not fail to impart stimulus to 
their teacher by their questions, objections, and careful prep- 
aration of papers which embodied the results of their own 
reading and reflection. I had begun to get hold of the 
Neander Library, and to extract from it a much needed 
aid. Homiletic instruction became an increasingly absorb- 
ing part of my work, making a larger draught on nervous 
energy than lecturing on Theology. My custom was, after 
having the sermon read before the class for their criticism 
as well as my own, to require the student to re-write it, then 
submit it to me for private examination. I scrupulously 
read each sermon through from beginning to end, then sent 
for the student, and, in instances not a few, went over it 
with him, paragraph by paragraph, hatchelling, combing, and 
sometimes reconstructing the whole. I can recall instances 
of a two hours' sitting with a single student. Fortunately 
there were large numbers that required no such criticism. 

During the immediately following years the work of 
instruction in the Seminary was largely a resurvey of the 
topics discussed in preceding years, — a readjustment of 
conclusions to one another, but still more largely an open- 
ing of new lines of inquiry. The doctrine of Christology 
was entered upon with a zeal the vivid recollection of 
which still survives. The helps and sources of information 
at that day were meagre indeed in comparison with what is 
now within the reach of every one. The humiliation of 
Christ became an inquiry of absorbing interest. Dissatisfied 
with any conception of it within reach, I set to work at the 
very careful study of the New Testament itself. It was 
forced upon my mind that the humiliation consisted in the 
limitations of the divine by its assumption of the human. 



56 EZEKIEL GILMAN ROBINSON. 

So thoroughly convinced was I of this explanation, that I 
made it the subject of a discourse delivered before the 
Society of Missionary Inquiry at the Commencement of 
Brown University in 1856. The view presented struck 
the audience as novel and questionable. President Way- 
land, who heard the discourse, thought it was " an impor- 
tant doctrine, if true." The conclusions, however, which 
I had reached were in my own mind thoroughly settled, 
and determined to no small extent the whole range of my 
theological ideas. The Kenotist theory of Gess, Thomasius, 
and others, with which the theology of our day has made 
everybody familiar, had not then come to my knowledge. 
It was not until a later date that I adjusted this conception 
of the humiliation to what became my clearly defined view 
of the atonement. 

At the end of the Seminary year, in 1857, my colleague, 
Dr. Conant, resigned the chair of Biblical Literature and 
Criticism to give his whole time to the work of translation 
for the American Bible Union. He had for some time 
before this been in their service in addition to his profes- 
sorial duties. His retirement took from the Theological 
Seminary its most distinguished professor. His broad and 
accurate biblical learning, especially in Hebrew literature, 
was recognized both in this country and abroad. It was 
feared that his withdrawal might interfere with our pros- 
perity. His "going was the loss to me of a personal friend. 
It was also to me a matter of personal regret that he should 
leave the work of the Seminary for the service on which he 
entered ; but it had been a life-long desire of his to put the 
Bible, particularly the Old Testament, into the hands of Eng- 
lish readers in a much more accurate translation than was 
furnished in the so-called version of King James. This 
offer of the Bible Union seemed to him to afford the only 



ROCHESTER PROFESSORSHIP AND PRESIDENCY. 57 

opportunity for the realization of his long-cherished desire. 
To many of us it was a matter of serious regret, and, as we 
thought, financially a mistake, that he did not remain in the 
Seminary, proceed with his translation, and issue instal- 
ments at cheap rates to subscribers. We believed that such 
a translation would have an immense circulation. Against 
the Bible Union was a wide-spread and deep-seated pre- 
judice, a dislike on the part of very many of the best minds 
in the denomination, for both its spirit and its methods. 
The ignorant and bigoted talk about " the pure word of 
God," by which large numbers of uninformed people were 
drawn to the support of the Union, we were confident could 
awake nothing but aversion in the mind of so clear-headed 
and enlightened a man as Dr. Conant. He was too well 
acquainted with the numberless variations in the original 
texts not to feel humiliated by this clap-trap talk of the 
managers and abettors of the Bible Union. Of the bitter- 
ness and bigotry of their spirit I had myself had experience 
before becoming a professor at Bochester. The scandal 
brought upon the denomination by the Bible Union among 
intelligent men, to say nothing of the reckless waste of 
funds, is one of the painful memories among those of us 
who have survived those days of noise, pretence, and fanati- 
cism. It should not be forgotten as one of the warnings 
against unwise leadership. 

The retirement of Dr. Conant required some reconstruc- 
tion of the Faculty of the Seminary. My friend Hotchkiss, 
to whom I was more sincerely attached than he was ever 
aware of, was transferred from the chair of Ecclesiastic 
History to the chair of Biblical Literature, left vacant by 
Dr. Conant, for the duties of which he had special predilec- 
tion. In the chair of Ecclesiastical History, thus made 
vacant, we placed a young man 1 who had just graduated from 
1 G. W. Northrup, D.D., LL.D. — Ed. 



58 EZEKIEL GILMAN ROBINSON". 

the Seminary, and who has since made for himself a distin- 
guished name as a teacher of Theology, and as the head of 
the Baptist Union Theological Seminary at Morgan Park, 
near Chicago, since become the Divinity School of the 
University of Chicago. The appointment of so young a 
man was regarded with distrust by some of the trustees; 
but his immediate success and his subsequent career fully 
vindicated the confidence of his instructors, who had recom- 
mended his appointment. 

In one of the late autumns about this period I found my 
health affected by a distressing cough. In those earlier years 
my lecture-room in the old hotel building on Buffalo Street 
was but fifteen or sixteen feet square. To spend two hours 
at a time with fifteen or eighteen men in so small a room 
required an open window just at my shoulder, to keep us 
from partial suffocation. A succession of colds had fastened 
the cough. Our family physician took alarm, said I must 
quit my work and go South. He went with me to Balti- 
more. Ten days among my old friends at Norfolk, with 
abundant oysters and Southern atmosphere, speedily put me 
on my feet again, and within two weeks I was back and at 
work as well as ever, but in a more spacious lecture-room. 

It is needless to say that with myself the horizon of theo- 
logical thought was constantly widening and the atmosphere 
clearing. The inexhaustible doctrine of sin was still one 
of the living topics. It became clear to my mind that sin 
could be comprehensively discussed and clearly understood 
only under the triple conception of it as act, principle, and 
state. Sin, then, as I was accustomed to teach, may be 
comprehensively defined as follows : As an act it is a trans- 
gression of God's law ; as a principle that determines the 
guilt of acts, it is opposition or hostility to God ; as a state 
or nature, it is moral unlikeness to God. The meaning of 



ROCHESTER PROFESSORSHIP AND PRESIDENCY. 59 

the word " death " in the Pauline epistles, as well as in the 
Fourth Gospel, received special attention. The position 
was maintained that literal death could not be held to be 
the specific penalty for sin, but that the term " death " was 
used by both writers in its metaphorical sense. 

The doctrine of atonement was with all classes a subject 
of protracted discussion. My own views had now begun to 
pass through a rapid transition. Up to that time I had been 
a steadfast defender of the doctrine of substitution ; but the 
Ansel mic substitution had too much of the commercial tone 
for me to take it without large cpaalifications. The federal 
imputation theory of Princeton was too mechanical and arti- 
ficial to be endured ; I had long before abandoned the whole 
conception of the decretive will of God on which the theory 
rested, as arbitrary and contrary to the Christian conception 
of the Godhead. The governmental theory of Andover, so 
ably defended by Dr. Park, seemed to me superficial, and 
incapable of any just defence either on philosophical or 
scriptural grounds. The Socinian theory of moral influ- 
ence appeared to fasten its attention on the secondary effect 
of Christ's life and death, to the exclusion of that efficient 
principle which a right view of his death alone could sup- 
ply, and which alone could secure the moral influence 
claimed ; that is, by excluding a right view of his death it 
deprived the atonement of that moral influence which the 
theory ascribed to it. The life theory just then coming into 
vogue, the first beginnings of what has since blossomed out 
into the New Theology, fastened its attention on the incar- 
nation, making the death of Christ a means of communi- 
cating the life which he had brought into the world, rather 
than a propitiatory sacrifice, through which alone a partici- 
pation in that life becomes possible. To reach any clear 
and definite conceptions of the atonement, it seemed necessary 



60 EZEKIEL GILMAN ROBINSON. 

to examine analytically and critically the fundamental 
principles underlying it. The chief of these were to be 
found in the scriptural ideas of the nature of God, of man, 
and of moral law, as expressing the nature of the relations 
between God and man. 

For a series of years no question in my lecture-room took 
precedence of an inquiry into the fundamental conception of 
moral law. The older theories of the atonement all built 
upon the idea of law as either the decretive will of God, or 
as a statute made simply to secure some desired end. They 
conceived law as a statute whose penalty might be enforced 
or remitted as the wise will of God should decide to be 
expedient. With such an idea of moral law all modern sci- 
ence and all sound philosophy were hopelessly at variance. 
The realism to which all science and philosophy were con- 
verging made it necessary to conceive of law as constitutive 
in the nature alike of God and man. At this juncture 
familiarity with the writings of Neander, particularly with 
his account of the planting and training of the Apostolic 
Church, helped very greatly to clarify my own ideas. The 
more I read of various treatises on the atonement, the less I 
was satisfied with their ideas of moral law. Turning again 
to Neander, and from Neander to the conceptions of law 
presented in the treatises of scientists, I became thoroughly 
convinced that no idea of law was justifiable which rested 
in any decretive or legislative will, or was derived from any 
other source than the eternal nature of God, which had deter- 
mined forever the moral constitution of the universe. Law 
is a constituent principle of moral being as such, whether 
that being be the infinite God or finite man. Thus moral 
law is as immutable as God himself, and its awards can no 
more be reversed than the nature of God can change. 

The doctrines thus far referred to came naturally before 



ROCHESTER PROFESSORSHIP AND PRESIDENCY. 61 

successive classes, but single doctrines occupied dispropor- 
tionate attention with different classes, the special topics 
depending mainly on the philosophical training and abilities 
of the leading minds of the class. Different classes thus 
received different impressions as to what I regarded as most 
fundamental and important in a system of Theology. They 
did not always apprehend the relations to other essential 
truths of the doctrines on which they had longest lingered. 
They did not understand that I was myself steadily growing 
in apprehension of the logical relations of one doctrine to 
another, and was gradually forming the whole into a com- 
plete and harmonious system. It was only in the later years 
of my professorship of Theology that my mind became thor- 
oughly settled as to the relations of the parts to one another. 
I never forgot, from the beginning of my Eochester work 
to its end, that I was myself a learner, and was ever open 
to the reception of truth, come whencesoever it might. This 
alone could explain the freedom which every student was 
encouraged to exercise in questioning and in discussion. 
We never were afraid of looking any opinion frankly in the 
face, and reverently and devoutly inquiring, under the teach- 
ing of God's Word, whether it was truth or error. It has 
always seemed to me that no greater wrong could be done to 
theological students than to require them to accept without 
scrutiny any principle or sentiment avowed by their teacher. 
They should, on the contrary, be encouraged, with an humble 
reliance on the Divine guidance, to inquire, think, and decide 
for themselves. 

In one of the years between 1857 and 1859 occurred an 
episode in the history of the Seminary affecting its then 
existing status and its future. With this episode I was 
myself so connected as to make fit that there should here be 
an allusion to it, and an explanation of its occurrence. For 



62 EZEKIEL GILMAN ROBINSON, 

several months the Seminary had failed to pay the salaries 
of its professors. There was a financial crisis in its affairs. 
The friends of the institution were invited to a conference 
on the subject. Our dear good friend, the Eev. Zenas Free- 
man, corresponding secretary and, in fact, financial agent of 
the New York Baptist Union for Ministerial Education, 
which had been organized to " sustain a Theological School, " 
and which appointed the Seminary's Board of Trustees, made 
to the conference a report of the Seminary's financial condi- 
tion. He began his report with a statement of assets. The 
two items with which he began were $50,000 of scholar- 
ships, and the money which had been given by Mr. Eoswell 
Burroughs for the purchase of the ISTeander Library. At the 
close of his report I ventured to ask how it could be possible 
that we had an asset of $50,000, and there be no income for 
the payment of our salary. It then, for the first time, came 
to be understood that this $50,000 consisted of the first funds 
that had been collected towards an endowment of the Uni- 
versity. As scholarships, every dollar of the income accrued 
to the University for the tuition and support of undergrad- 
uate candidates for the ministry, thus paying the salaries of 
University professors, while not a dollar of it was available 
for salaries of professors in the Seminary. How this $50,000 
could be regarded as part of the Seminary's assets, or how 
money paid for the purchase of the Neander Library could 
be so designated, was incomprehensible. A mystification 
was immediately cleared up. Before accepting my profes- 
sorship I had been assured that the Seminary had an endow- 
ment of some $60,000, the income from which at then 
prevailing rates of interest seemed ample provision for the 
salaries of Dr. Conant and myself, with our expected col- 
league. It could safely be anticipated that natural increase 
of the supposed endowment would provide for additional 



ROCHESTER PROFESSORSHIP AND PRESIDEXCY. 63 

members of the Faculty. The result of the conference was a 
dissipation of our imaginary endowment; the $50,000 never 
again figured among the assets of the Seminary. Unfortu- 
nately, this episode gave me the reputation of being the dis- 
turber of an existing harmony. The truth was it then 
became clear to the public mind that the only provision for 
ministerial education thus far made in the way of endow- 
ment was for support of undergraduates in the University. 
This episode reached its climax a few years later, when it 
becanie evident, on the death of Mr. Freeman, that the Sem- 
inary was absolutely bankrupt. To meet the salaries of the 
professors, the Eev. Mr. Freeman had borrowed money wher- 
ever it was obtainable. He had advanced $1200 of his own 
funds, taking, as security, a note signed by the responsible 
officers of the Ministerial Union. This note remaining un- 
paid, his widow had placed it in the hands of the distin- 
guished jurist, Henry E. Selden, for collection. There was 
not a dollar in the treasury with which to pay it. It was 
quietly intimated to us that we should not be crowded for 
payment, but that the widow was in great need of the 
money. There was but one thing to do, and that was for 
me to go to New York and raise the $1200. I left my class 
in the hands of my colleagues, spent a Sunday with Madi- 
son Avenue Church, receiving a contribution of several 
hundred dollars, and the remainder I picked up in various 
places, hat in hand. I found the lone widow in the upper 
part of the city, paid her the $1200, and, taking the can- 
celled note, returned with all haste to my work in the 
lecture-room. There were no stars in our heavens in those 
days. The future of the Seminary was problematical. It 
was a relief, however, to know our real condition, and what 
alone could save us. The real work of the.Seminary went 
on with unabated interest, no student, so far as I was aware, 



64 EZEKIEL GILMAN ROBINSON. 

having the remotest conception of the financial strait through 
which we were passing. 

It was at about this time that the German department had 
become organized, and was in sorest need of some provision 
for the salary of Professor Eauschenbusch, its head teacher. 
I recall no service with more satisfaction than that of secur- 
ing from the devout and large-hearted J. B. Hoyt, of Stam- 
ford, Connecticut, the sum of $20,000 as the basis of an 
endowment for Professor Eauschenbusch's chair. This was 
secured while we were also doing our utmost toward an 
endowment for ourselves ; but I doubt if any money was 
ever devoted to a worthier object than that to which Mr. 
Hoyt gave his $20,000. The thirty years' service of Pro- 
fessor Eauschenbusch in Eochester furnishes part of one of 
the most interesting chapters in the history of American 
Baptists. 

In the autumn of 1859 came a proposition from Mr. Smith 
Sheldon, the book publisher of New York, that I should 
revise Byland's translation of Neander's " Planting and 
Training of the Christian Church. " A last and revised edi- 
tion of the original work had appeared in Germany subse- 
quent to Byland's translation. The proposition was so to 
revise his translation as to incorporate all the modifications 
of the last German edition. It was soon discovered that 
this last German edition had been exhausted, and no copy of 
it could be -obtained. A copy in two volumes was finally 
obtained from the library of the Eev. Dr. Hitchcock, of 
Union Theological Seminary in New York. A cumulative 
variety of duties, however, intervened to delay the appear- 
ance of the revision long beyond the time announced. First 
came from the same publisher in the winter of 1860 the 
proposition that Dr. Hotchkiss and I should edit the " Chris- 
tian Eeview, " of which he had become proprietor. This 



ROCHESTER PROFESSORSHIP AND PRESIDENCY. 65 

proposition we unfortunately accepted. The disordered 
state of the country, the alienation between the North and 
the South, made the support of such a review extremely 
precarious. The outbreak of the civil war cut off, at one 
stroke, every subscriber from the Southern States, and the 
overdue payments for past years. The minds of the 
Northern people were much more interested in the immedi- 
ate prospects of the country than in theological or philo- 
sophical discussion. The outlook for a continued pecuniary 
support of the Review was dismal in the extreme. The 
Eeview was purchased by Mr. Ezra E. Andrews, of Roches- 
ter. I continued sole editor until 1863, when longer con- 
tinuance of its publication seemed impossible, and the 
proprietors of the " Bibliotheca Sacra " became purchasers of 
its subscription list. I have called this an unfortunate ser- 
vice : it was four years of exhausting and unpaid labor. 

In the meagreness of my salary as professor of Theology, 
it became a matter of necessity not to decline invitations 
to pulpit service. In 1860 came an invitation from the 
First Presbyterian Church in Rochester to supply its pulpit. 
Its congregation was one of the most intelligent and attrac- 
tive that a preacher could desire to address. Its large pro- 
portion of liberally educated men, especially of the legal 
profession, furnished a stimulus to the fullest exertion of a 
preacher's powers. I accepted the invitation with the 
understanding that the service was to continue only until 
they could secure a pastor. It ran on for a year or more, 
covering one of the stormiest periods in our national history. 
The public mind was profoundly moved by the outbreak of 
the civil war. It was impossible that my preaching should 
not at times take a tone and coloring from what was in 
everybody's mind. One incident stands out conspicuously 
in my recollection : a single sentence in the course of the 



66 EZEKIEL GILMAN ROBINSON. 

sermon so struck the congregation that, to my surprise and 
fright, they responded with a sudden outbreak of hand- 
clapping such as I had never heard at a religious service. 
For a staid Presbyterian assemblage it was not only a novel 
exhibition of feeling, but indicative of the feverish excite- 
ment of the public mind. 1 One of the peculiarities of this 
service was that a Baptist should preach on Sunday, give a 
mid-week lecture, preach a sermon preparatory to com- 
munion, and yet never appear at the communion-table. The 
incongruity was felt alike by the preacher and the people. 
With this exception the service was one which the preacher 
himself thoroughly enjoyed. While this service continued, 
my work as a theological teacher, instead of being in any 
degree slighted, was carried forward with ever-increasing 
interest. The ministrations of the pulpit reacted upon the 
work of the lecture-room to the stimulus of professor and 
students alike. The revision of Neander was held in' 
abeyance, and editorial work on the " Christian Eeview " 
was disposed of by me more summarily than it ought to 
have been. The unproductiveness of the Eeview made it 

1 The editor, who was present, well remembers the thrill that ran through 
the congregation when the preacher, yielding for a moment to the terrible 
strain of feeling which belonged to the early days of the civil war, invoked 
the judgment of God against the rebellion, and predicted that the besom of 
destruction would sweep the South. The effect was overpowering, and the 
spontaneous outbreak of applause a real relief. After Dr. Robinson had 
preached for -this church a year, Judge Gardiner, a prominent member of the 
church, remarked to the writer that they must give up the services of Dr. 
Robinson, or they would never call a pastor. The " war speeches " of Dr. 
Robinson and Dr. Anderson were a notable feature of the meetings held at 
that period to encourage enlistments. When the news that Lincoln had 
been assassinated reached Rochester, " our citizens," wrote Frederick Doug- 
lass in his autobiography, " not knowing what else to do in the agony of the 
hour, betook themselves to the City Hall. Though all hearts ached for 
utterance, few felt like speaking. . . . Dr. Robinson . . . was prevailed 
upon to take the stand, and made one of the most touching and eloquent 
speeches I ever heard." — Ed. 



ROCHESTER PROFESSORSHIP AXD PRESIDENCY. 67 

impossible, in its closing years, to offer remuneration to the 
writers for it, and, accordingly, not many writers of the 
highest merit could be induced to become contributors. 

In the summer of 1861 the Pearl Street Baptist Church of 
Albany was in a perilous condition through disagreement 
over the resignation of its pastor. They requested me to 
become stated supply of their pulpit until they could so far 
harmonize as to agree upon another pastor. Complying 
with this request, it became necessary for me to make a 
weekly trip to Albany. Sometimes I could so arrange duties 
and command my time as to take the Saturday morning 
train ; not unfrequently it became necessary to take the train 
Saturday night, reaching Albany at four o'clock in the 
morning, giving me time for a morning rest before entering 
the pulpit. The congregation was all that one could desire. 
They were to the highest degree kindly and appreciative. 
This service continued for a year or more, but the draught on 
time and strength was too much to be longer protracted. In 
the summer of 1862 I recommended the church to send a 
committee to Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts, to hear the 
Eev. C. De W. Bridgman, with a view to calling him to the 
pastorate. He was immediately called, accepted the call, 
and after a most successful pastorate of fifteen years resigned, 
in spite of the earnest protestations of his church and 
parishioners. 

In thus referring to Dr. Bridgman, I am reminded of one 
who graduated with him in the class of 1857, Abner King- 
man Nott, the successor, immediately after his graduation, 
of the distinguished Dr. Cone as pastor of the First Baptist 
Church in New York. His ardent piety, his fine qualities 
of mind and heart, his winning manners, gave him at once 
the most extraordinary success. Almost at the beginning of 
a brilliant career, full of the largest promise, his life was 



68 EZEKIEL GILMAN ROBINSON. 

suddenly terminated by drowning, in July, 1859, at the 
age of twenty -five. The vast concourse brought together by 
his funeral testified to both the depth and the breadth of 
the impression which he had produced, and to the tender- 
ness of feeling which he had awakened. I had preached 
at his ordination, and it was a most melancholy service to 
officiate at his funeral. 

In the beginning of the session of 1860 the Seminary may 
be said, in a sense, to have taken a new start. Up to this 
time its course of study had been limited to two years. Of 
necessity this compression resulted in incompleteness in 
every department. There was a growing feeling that we 
must have an additional year. How to effect this was a 
difficult problem. By many it was said, " It is best to let 
well enough alone. " To enlarge our course had been with 
me a long-cherished desire. From the time of the retirement 
of Dr. Conant no little responsibility for the work of the 
Seminary had devolved on me as senior professor. In 1860 
the trustees of their own motion gave me the formal title of 
President. This act laid on me an increased sense of respon- 
sibility, as well as a feeling of obligation to the students 
and the public to extend our course of study. In addition 
to this was the inexorable necessity of a larger income, of 
a permanent endowment for professorships, and of a fund 
for the increase of the library. With the presidency came 
a multiplicity of duties and cares. Work inside the Semi- 
nary could not be slighted, and decisive measures for secur- 
ing an endowment could be no longer delayed. 

At the beginning of the session of 1861 the class which 
had entered in 1860 sent to the Faculty and Trustees a formal 
petition that their course should be extended to a third year. 
Their petition was granted without hesitation, and, accord- 
ingly, there was no class to graduate in 1862. All felt 



ROCHESTER PROFESSORSHIP AND PRESIDENCY. 69 

that a needed advance had been made, and the Seminary 
moved onward with freer breath and quickened step. The 
work of my own department was at once widened, as well 
as made more analytically minute. Classes in Systematic 
Theology now got clearer conceptions of the professor's 
vie\tfs, and of the logical relations of part with part. My 
work was increasingly satisfactory both in process and re- 
sults. The department of Homiletics, which, from lack of 
funds to support a professor, I had never been able to trans- 
fer to the shoulders of another, could now receive attention 
more nearly commensurate with its need. Beginning with 
lectures on preaching in the Middle year, attention was 
continued to it throughout the remainder of the course. 

In the spring of 1863 it became apparent in an unexpected 
way that there was a limit to human capacity for work 
which could not be passed with impunity. I was suddenly 
thrown upon my back by a violent fever. Our family phy- 
sician quietly said, " It is the result of overwork ; rest will 
speedily relieve you. " But rest brought no relief. The 
fever had so firm a grip that it speedily developed into the 
typhoid type. Bevision of Neander, editorial work on the 
Beview, professorial work in the Seminary, and the raising 
of funds for an endowment were brought to a stand-still. 
What the result was to be I afterwards learned became to 
personal friends a matter of anxiety. I was myself unaware 
of danger, though impatient at the long interruption of what 
had come to be absorbing pursuits. While the class of 1863, 
a class in which I took special interest as being the first to 
whose course a third year had been added, were engaged in 
graduating exercises, it was a matter of uncertainty whether 
I should ever leave the sick-bed alive. The summer was far 
advanced before I could resume any serious task. My first 
public work, when I was barely able to stand on my feet, 



70 EZEKIEL GILMAN ROBINSON. 

was to preach the ordination sermon of the Eev. Wayland 
Hoyt at Pittsfield, Massachusetts. The intervening weeks 
until the opening of the next session of the Seminary were 
spent in recruiting my strength. It was in this autumn it 
became evident that, in the distractions of the country, the 
publication of the " Christian Eeview" could be no lcfnger 
continued, and its publisher transferred its list of sub- 
scribers to the " Bibliotheca Sacra. " With recovered 
strength the long suspended revision of JSTeander was 
resumed. Up to this time only fragmentary work had 
been done on it. Then taking it in hand in earnest, 
" copy " was soon on its way to the printers. Before another 
summer had come and gone the task was completed, the 
class of 1864 had been graduated, and hopeful progress had 
been made in the attempts at endowment. 

While engaged in prosecuting the work of endowment, 
serious questions arose between the Seminary and the Uni- 
versity proper, occasioning grave discussions which resulted 
in decisions unacceptable to some of the friends of the Uni- 
versity, and led to misunderstandings that may as well here 
as anywhere be cleared up. Until now we had been occu- 
pying rooms in the old hotel building on Buffalo Street, and 
paying rent for them to the University. Immediate friends 
of the Seminary, including leading trustees, said, " If we 
are to have an endowment, why should we not have a local 
habitation as well as a name ? " It was decided that, instead 
of paying rent to the University, of which we were popularly 
understood to be a department, strenuous efforts should at 
once be made for a building and a home of our own. The 
grave question was, Where should it be placed ? The Trus- 
tees of the University, especially Baptist members of the 
board, said, " Place it on the University campus. " Drs. 
Anderson and Cutting were especially earnest advocates of 



ROCHESTER PROFESSORSHIP AND PRESIDENCY. 71 

this location. Their advocacy was seconded by Dr. Dean 
and others. It was claimed that, in accepting the grounds 
for the campus, the right had been reserved to place on it 
the building's of the Theological Seminary ; but when the 
trustees asked for a deed in fee simple of the lot or lots on 
which they should build, it was replied that this could not 
be done, — the conditions on which the land had been 
given precluding the right to deed it away. But the Sem- 
inary refused to erect buildings on land which it could not 
own. In the unknown vicissitudes of the future, embarrass- 
ments might arise, the risk of which the Seminary had no 
right to incur. It was decided to seek a site elsewhere. 
This decision gave much dissatisfaction to the Baptist pro- 
fessors and trustees of the University. The ruling idea of 
ministerial education as the ultimate aim of the University 
had been constantly presented among the Baptist churches 
as a motive for its endowment. To give to the Seminary a 
distinct and separate location it was feared would diminish 
the interest of Baptist churches in the University as such. 
Up to this time many Baptists, under the illusion that the 
Theological Seminary was an organic part of the University, 
and the ultimate end for which it had been endowed, had 
contributed moneys not a dollar of which, principal or inter- 
est, had gone to the support of either professor or student in 
the Seminary. To divert attention from the University to 
the Seminary as distinctively theological would, it was 
feared, work disastrously to the University. Inevitably, 
some coolness arose between the immediate friends of the 
Seminary and those of the University. As president of the 
Seminary a little more than due share of odium fell upon 
my shoulders. 

As was natural, a shade of coolness arose between Dr. 
Anderson, as head of the University, and myself, as head of 



72 EZEKIEL GILMAN ROBINSON. 

the Seminary. Our acquaintance and friendship had dated 
from 1840, when we were students together at Newton 
Theological Institution. It was also largely through his 
agency that I had become Professor of Theology at Eochester. 
In the earlier years of the work at Eochester our intimacy 
had been close and uninterrupted. Many a night, until the 
small hours, was spent by us in most animated and friendly 
discussion of topics in which we had a common interest. 
For theology he had no taste, and about its history and most 
fundamental controversies he had little or no knowledge. 
In many respects his mental constitution was widely differ- 
ent from my own. He could hold opinions and be subject 
to convictions that to my mind were not only inconsistent, 
but mutually destructive. His mind seemed to be con- 
structed like a modern sea-going steamer, with separate 
compartments, one of which might be " stove in, " and yet 
it sail right onward. Thus he could hold a scientific 
conclusion or principle that to me seemed destructive of 
Christian faith. With him, science and faith stood on 
independent grounds ; with me, faith was crippled if science 
collided with it at any point, either in its premises or in 
its conclusions. He was a strict nominalist ; I, in a 
modern sense of the term, was an equally strict realist. 
He was not by nature a metaphysician ; but as teacher of 
philosophy he was extremely fond of philosophical discus- 
sion. His range of knowledge was very wide for a man of 
his age. As tutor in Latin, as also in Mathematics, at 
Waterville College, then Professor of Ehetoric and Lecturer 
on History, he was possessed of an unusually well-furnished 
mind. He was extremely fond, in our discussions, of free 
and wide excursions over the fields of knowledge with which 
his work at Waterville had made him more or less familiar. 
To this range of knowledge he had had occasion, as editor 



ROCHESTER PROFESSORSHIP AND PRESIDENCY. 73 

of the " New York Recorder, " frequently to recur. As a 
teacher and social disputant, all that he had acquired was 
at his ready command. His teaching accordingly was racy 
to a degree. As a companion in social life, he was full of 
interest, and his visits were always more than welcome. 
Between such old friends and companions the faintest air 
of coolness was to me at least extremely painful; but the 
interests of the University were to him supremely dear, as 
were those of the Seminary to me. He exercised his free- 
dom in criticism of myself and the Seminary to others, and 
to others I did the same respecting him and the University ; 
but never a word of angry dispute or of unkindness passed 
between ourselves. Our estimate of each other and of each 
other's work remained as kindly as ever. My estimation 
of him as a man and as the executive of a college was of the 
highest. His habits of mind and ever-increasing range of 
knowledge gave him a power as head of a college which has 
rarely been equalled. He would enter upon a new subject 
of inquiry and push his researches with a fury until he had 
made himself master of all its main particulars. Continu- 
ing this for a year or two, he would drop the subject for a 
new one. Thus at one period he was absorbed in ethno- 
logical inquiries under the guidance of such writers as 
Prichard. Discovering that comparative philology was 
the most decisive of all tests, he dropped ethnology. This 
discursive habit he continued to the end of his career, con- 
cluding his life in the study of etching, engraving, and the 
fine arts with absorbing interest. Dr. Anderson, by his 
tastes, his range of knowledge, and his fondness for 
economic, sociological, and political questions, was pre- 
eminently fitted for public life. Rochester University is, 
however, an enduring monument of a great life and of a 
genuine self-sacrifice. Effective as were his public ad- 



74 EZEKIEL GILMAN EOBINSON. 

dresses, Dr. Anderson, in my estimate, will be longest 
remembered by his students for his chapel -talks, usually 
on current events, and for his farewell words at the gradua- 
tion of the several classes. He was a wise man in refusing 
all invitations to leave his work at Eochester for any other 
University. 

While considering with anxiety how to secure an endow- 
ment for the Seminary, and means for the erection of its 
needed buildings, as well as where they should be placed, 
it seemed to me that, before proceeding further, one more 
honest attempt should be made to terminate the scandal of 
maintaining two rival theological schools, at Hamilton and 
at Eochester, within the limits of a single State, both com- 
peting for support from the same churches and on the same 
pleas. In common with others who had had no participa- 
tion in the original struggle which resulted in the founding 
of Eochester University, I felt that one step toward healing 
the breach that had been created might be taken in the 
consolidation of the two theological schools. I accordingly 
wrote an earnest letter to Dr. Dodge at Hamilton, proposing 
that we should unite in a concerted effort to transfer the two 
institutions to some Eastern city, either Albany or New 
York, and build them up into a single institution of which 
Baptists should have no occasion to be ashamed. I went so 
far as to propose to resign my own position at Eochester, 
without expectation of resuming it, and betake myself to 
the States of New York, Pennsylvania, ■ — the Crozer The- 
ological Seminary had not then been founded, — and New 
Jersey to raise an endowment for the new institution. This 
seemed to me also to furnish a solution of the complicated 
problem before us at Eochester. Dr. Dodge replied that 
the proposed movement could not fail to be abortive, and 
would, instead of uniting the two institutions, result in the 



ROCHESTER PROFESSORSHIP AND PRESIDENCY. 75 

formation of a third. The only alternative, so far as I could 
then see, was to take off our coats and go to work in earnest 
to put the Eochester Seminary into a home of its own, and 
to place it on a foundation where it could do its work more 
effectively than had been possible in its preceding years. 

During the years 1865 and 1866 the work of collecting 
funds for an endowment was carried forward with encourag- 
ing success, though not at a very rapid rate. Every day was 
given to it that could justifiably be spared from professorial 
duties. All Seminary vacations and recesses were spent in 
New York and its vicinity, or in the States of Connecticut 
and New Jersey, soliciting subscriptions. In addition to 
the endowment was the necessary provision of funds for the 
current support of beneficiaries. From a variety of causes, 
needless here to explain, the Union for Ministerial Educa- 
tion, during these two years, had no corresponding secretary, 
one of whose chief duties had been to provide for the benefi- 
ciaries. The care of them fell mainly to my lot. Besides 
bona fide subscriptions, several very handsome amounts had 
been conditionally subscribed or verbally promised, and 
could not be counted upon beyond question for the endow- 
ment until certain contingencies in the future should be 
finally determined. 

At the conclusion of the Seminary year of 1865 a colleague, 
Professor Velona E. Hotchkiss, with whom I had for eleven 
years sustained most intimate and most pleasant relations, 
sent in his resignation of the chair of Biblical Literature. 
His resignation gave me great pain, because tendered under 
misapprehensions which I was not then at liberty, though 
it was in my power, to dissipate. I simply assured him 
that the time might come when I could explain to him what 
then seemed suspicious, and could give him conclusive 
evidence of the truth of my explanation. That time came, 



76 EZEKIEL GILMAN ROBINSON. 

thank Heaven! years before his departure from this earth. 
I not only dissipated the misapprehension, but referred him 
to the best of authority for its groundlessness. Dr. Hotch- 
kiss was scholarly, genial, in the highest degree companion- 
able, free from guile and all double-mindedness, a colleague 
from whom I parted with sincere regret. As an expository 
preacher he had few, if any, equals. 

On the resignation of Dr. Hotchkiss, Dr. Kendrick of the 
University assumed the duties of the chair of Biblical 
Literature. Though professor of classical Greek, he had 
for many years been a most diligent and critical student of 
the New Testament. He was an acknowledged master in 
its interpretation. With the Hebrew he was not so much 
at home ; in fact, he had only paid it the courtesy of an 
occasional and transient visit. He knew but little more 
of it than its alphabet. By daily acquisitions he kept 
ahead of his class ; but the breadth of his knowledge and 
his masterly power of acquisition never permitted a soul 
among the students to suspect that he was practically a be- 
ginner in the study of the language which he was teaching. 
Such was his enthusiasm in the work that his class went 
forward with all the zeal and success of the pupils of a long- 
practised master. His duties were discharged alike to the 
satisfaction of himself, his colleagues, and his pupils. A 
long-cherished friend, a man of the greatest versatility and 
most varied "acquirements, of poetic fancy, of rarest geni- 
ality, urbanity, and wit, he would have been gladly retained 
as a permanent member of the faculty in the Seminary, and 
was always a most welcome guest in our household. 



IN EUROPE. 77 



CHAPTER IV. 

IN EUROPE. — LAST YEARS IN ROCHESTER. 
1866-1872. 

DUPING my visits to New York in 1865, I chanced to 
make the acquaintance of Mr. Coffin, who for many 
years had been at the head of the mailing department in the 
Post-Office of New York City. In conversation one day, hav- 
ing asked me if I had been abroad, he said, " Why don't you 
go ? " Replying that the expense of it, my duties as pro- 
fessor, and reluctance to be away from my family had 
combined to deter me from the thought of it, he at once 
said : " I can send you and your family to England without 
a dollar of expense to you. I have carte blanche from the 
Inman line of steamers to send abroad as free passengers any 
friends of mine to whom I may desire to show this cour- 
tesy. " And he added, " You will receive just as much 
attention from the officers of the steamer as if you were 
paying the highest price for your tickets. " His words were 
literally fulfilled. We all had free passes both in going 
and in returning. 

It was accordingly determined during the year 1865 that, 
as soon as arrangements of Seminary work could be com- 
pleted, making possible a year and a half's absence, we 
would sail for Europe. Certain loose strings attached to 
subscriptions for endowment required to be carefully tied ; 
one hundred dollars was to be provided for each of the bene- 
ficiaries during my absence ; and, more than all, the course 



78 EZEKIEL GILMAN ROBINSON. 

of theological instruction for the class which was to graduate 
in 1867 was to be completed. A mountain of work lying in 
the way was to be removed before we could sail. It was 
accordingly not till near the middle of December, 1866, 
that we found ourselves on board the " City of Paris " with 
faces turned toward the Atlantic. Our commander was 
the accomplished Captain Kennedy, the commodore of the 
line. He was extremely anxious to eat Christmas dinner 
in his own home, which was at Chester, near Liverpool. 
The full power of the steamer was accordingly brought into 
play, and we were at the dock in Liverpool before the 
middle of the afternoon of Christmas day. 

It may not be out of place to tell of the somewhat amus- 
ing way in which I was welcomed to English soil. Help- 
lessly ill throughout the voyage, I had rarely appeared among 
the passengers in the saloon. A canny Scotchman, who had 
lived long in Texas, was curious as to my identity, and 
discovered that I was some sort of professor. While at the 
Queen's Arms in Liverpool Christmas evening, so many of 
the steamer's passengers as were at the hotel had met in the 
tap-room for a typical English Christmas evening over a 
punch-bowl. A polite message was sent to our private 
parlor inviting me to come down to see some of my fellow- 
passengers. As I entered the tap-room, two or three of 
them came forward with great cordiality, gradually lead- 
ing me uncfer the chandelier, which was decorated with 
mistletoe; when, quicker than a flash, a buxom bar-maid 
sprang from behind me, threw her arms about my neck, and 
planted a kiss upon my cheek. Of course the maid was 
entitled to the usual forfeit, the price of a pair of gloves, 
and my fellow-passengers had their hilarious laughter at my 
expense. 

On the morning after reaching Liverpool we took the 



IN EUROPE. 79 

express train for London, and went to Faull's Hotel, 1 within 
a stone 's-throw of Guildhall, and within easy distance of 
the Bank of England and St. Paul's Cathedral. It was a 
resort of college professors and other quiet and inquisitive 
people. Our stay of two or three weeks was improved by 
visiting old localities made famous in the history, both po- 
litical and literary, of England. Our first Sunday we went 
in the morning quite a long distance to attend a service 
at which Archbishop Manning, afterwards Cardinal, was to 
preach. His sermon was an able discourse, skilfully con- 
structed, and by successive steps leading up to and conclud- 
ing with a justification of transubstantiation and the 
worship of Mary. It was a packed assemblage of Irish, 
with a sprinkling of some eight or ten other faces, into 
which the Archbishop was constantly peering throughout his 
discourse. He was then of middle age, spare and angular 
in person, with clean-cut features and restless, eager eyes. 
In the afternoon we went to hear the famous James 
Martineau. No two assemblages could form a more com- 
plete contrast than that which we saw in the morning and 
that with which we met in the afternoon. The number of 
substantial-looking men whose countenances bespoke edu- 
cation and refinement was surprisingly large. Dr. Marti- 
neau wore a silk gown, and his head was densely covered 
with raven -black hair. He was then about sixty years of 
age. Surprised at the color of his hair, I asked one of his 
regular hearers, with whom I chanced to be sitting, if he 
dyed it. As though the question were a reflection on Dr. 
Martineau, he replied with warmth, " No ; he is not that kind 
of a man. " The sermon was a disappointment; it was in no 
way equal to the author's published writings. It was on the 

1 A pleasant family hotel, then kept at No. 7 King's Street, Cheapside, 
by a retired Independent minister. — Ed. 



80 EZEKIEL GILMAN ROBINSON. 

text, " As concerning this sect, we know that it is every- 
where spoken against. " It was a defence of the Unitarian 
denomination, and struck me as being strongly tinctured 
with a kind of sophistry which a very ordinary man might 
fall into in attempting to justify the existence of his 
sect. 

On the following Sunday we went, of course, to hear 
Spurgeon. I am sorry to say I have utterly forgotten both 
his text and his discourse. Like everybody else, we were 
profoundly impressed by the vastness, the reverent attention, 
and eager interest of the congregation. The preacher im- 
pressed me, not by anything he said, but by the sustained 
spirit and tone and easy energy with which every word was 
uttered, and by his complete control of his audience. The 
discourse started in my mind a study of the preacher, which 
was resumed on my return to London the following summer. 
Shortly after this I made the acquaintance of Mr. Spurgeon 
at a meeting of the London conference of Baptist ministers, 
held in one of the larger rooms of the Tabernacle. I was 
seated next him at the collation which was usually served 
at those meetings. He was, of course, the central figure of 
the occasion, and was called on for a speech. What he then 
said gave me a better idea of his versatility and the source 
of his power than I received from any other one or all of the 
sermons I heard from him. I tried in vain during the sup- 
per to get him to talk about his theological college. His 
reply to my questions was, " I must refer you to my brother, 
who knows all about it. " A speech from " our American 
brother" was, of course, called for. The brief response con- 
sisted mainly in a defence of the Northern States for the part 
they had taken in the great civil struggle through which we 
had lately passed. It was evident that not a few of the 
company had no special sympathy with Northern sentiment. 



IN EUROPE. 81 

The position of these English Baptists afforded a curious 
study for an intelligent Yankee. I am just here reminded 
of a remarkable misrepresentation made by some stupid per- 
son respecting this collation. I was not long ago accosted 
in the street by Rev. Justin D. Fulton, and inquired of 
about a dinner which had been given me in London, and at 
which there had been a copious supply of wines and 
liquors. He had, he said, a letter from some one whom 
he named who affirmed such a dinner to have been given. 
Dr. Fulton was specially anxious to know if wine was served 
at the collation above referred to. I could only assure him 
that I neither saw nor heard of anything stronger than 
water, tea, and coffee. 

It was during this stay in London that I presented one of 
my letters of introduction. It was, so far as I can now 
recall, the only one of the many I carried which I used 
while abroad. It was addressed by Rev. Dr. Weston to 
Rev. Dr. Brock, a somewhat noted Baptist minister of that 
day in London. Soon after reading the letter, he stepped 
to his sideboard and asked which I would take, sherry or 
port. Declining both, we chatted awhile, and he proposed 
to call for me at my hotel on the following Monday, to 
take me to a public meeting of dissenting ministers, which 
had been called for some object, I now forget what. This 
was the only civility I received from Dr. Brock. 

Of the London clergymen heard by us may be mentioned 
Dean Stanley at Westminster Abbey, whom I remember as 
following the beadle with his heels slipping up and down 
in over-large shoes, and as preaching in a drowsy and 
monotonous tone ; and the once famous but then aged Dr. 
Melville, who preached in one of the chapels of St. Paul's 
a sermon which I was almost certain I had read among his 
printed discourses more than twenty years before. I recall 

6 



82 EZEKIEL GILMAK" ROBINSON. 

also with great pleasure the delightful service we attended 
at the chapel of the Eev. Baptist Noel. The whole service, 
including the sermon, was refined in tone, truly Christian 
in thought, and winning in spirit. Of all the worshipping 
assemblies we saw in London, none could compare for appar- 
ent devoutness and intensity of interest with that of Father 
Machonochie at St. Alban's, High Holborn. It consisted 
to a very large degree of young men apparently from quite 
different classes of society. There was a baptism of in- 
fants during the service ; I was amused at the skill of the 
good father in whipping over his stole, which was purple 
side up when he received the infant, to the white side at 
the instant of concluding the formula of baptism. 

To any one accustomed, as we Americans are, to the com- 
plete effacement of down-town churches in our older cities, 
an interesting study is found in the parish churches which 
still survive in parts of old London, now almost exclusively 
occupied by business houses, — churches with rich endow- 
ments, well-salaried rectors or curates, but no parishioners. 
An intelligent and travelled physician of Queen's Street, 
Cheapside, told me he was the only gentleman resident in 
his parish. The curate, his personal friend, was required 
to hold a weekly evening service, provided there were any 
worshippers. The only person disposed sometimes to come 
to the service was one poor old woman, and she was hired 
to stay away. 

Curiosity prompted me one week-day to go and partake of 
one of the famous fish-dinners at Billingsgate. I found 
myself in a spacious dining-hall, with clean sanded floor, a 
long table with a shorter one at the end, running at right 
angles. Standing at the angle was a sleek, clerical-looking 
personage, smooth-shaven, with a white cravat and a 
swallow-tailed coat, who snapped out a " grace, " which 



IX EUROPE. 83 

served as a signal to the crowded guests to fall to and 
help themselves. I was seated at the end of the shorter 
table among older and much more substantial-looking 
men than were the majority of the diners. Four of my 
immediate neighbors soon discovered me to be a Yankee 
not long in England, and were not slow in plying me with 
questions about America and our terrible civil war. They 
began their dinner by each one ordering a glass of " 'alf and 
'alf," a drink the nature of which they volunteered to 
explain to me. The dinner, which consisted of ten courses 
of variously cooked and different kinds of fish, was soon 
disposed of ; but my four neighbors lingered long after the 
tables were cleared. Persistent in their inquiries about 
America, they remonstrated when I attempted two or three 
times to withdraw. Their potations amazed me, and I 
ventured to tell them that any one drinking in America 
as they had done would have been under the table. On 
leaving the hall, one of the four confided to me who they 
were ; they were all intelligent and well-to-do men of the 
upper middle class. It was an odd afternoon's experience, 
and through it I got an idea of one sort of London life 
which could have been gained in no other way. 

A snow-fall of some two inches in depth gave another 
amusing exhibition of London life. Cabmen demanded a 
pound for carrying one a distance for which they had pre- 
viously charged but a shilling. The " Times " thundered 
away at the vestries for not shovelling up and carting away 
the snow. Such a snow would have excited no comment 
from either newspapers or pedestrians in New York or 
Boston. 

From London we went to Paris, visiting Eouen, by the 
way, where we were well repaid by what we saw of pro- 
vincial French life. Our stay in Paris was not protracted. 



84 EZEKIEL GILMAN ROBINSON. 

Eeserving this city for a summer month, we hastened to 
Geneva, where we were to leave two of our children in the 
family of the distinguished historian, Merle D'Aubignd. 
From Geneva we proceeded directly to Italy. A single 
night's ride transferred us from a dismal evening snow- 
storm at Geneva to the bright and fragrant almond blossoms 
of Marseilles. The chill February air of Switzerland had 
been suddenly changed for the soft and soothing air of the 
Mediterranean. It was at Marseilles that we first saw stray 
glimpses of Oriental life. It was a queer sight to see cus- 
tomers served with milk from goats driven to their doors. 
The ancient city founded by Phoenicians, the earliest navi- 
gators and merchantmen of whom we have any definite 
knowledge, still abounded in Oriental scenes, notwith- 
standing all that France had done to modernize it. Our 
brief stay at Nice was among the pleasantest of our 
experiences ; this place was at that time the terminus of 
the railway. The drive along the Corniche road brought 
us to Genoa. Here and at Pisa we saw what everybody 
sees. At Naples we employed for the first time, and also 
for the last, a guide to take us to such quarters as we 
described. He took us to one of the Neapolitan hotels, all 
of which were then recognized as disease-traps on account 
of bad drainage. He was evidently a hotel-runner. After 
being duly rated, he landed us at an excellent boarding- 
house on the second floor of a ducal palace which fronted 
on the famous Bay. A drive to Lake Avernus and the 
Sibyl's Cave, and to Baiee, where we lunched on Lucrine 
oysters and Falernian wine, both execrable ; a day at Pompeii 
and Herculaneum; drives to Puteoli, St. Paul's landing- 
place in Italy when on his way to Eome as a prisoner ; to 
the extinct volcano of Solfatara, which then contented itself 
with innocent sulphurous smoke from unclosed crevices; 



IN EUROPE. 85 

with frequent visits to various departments of the Museum, 
filled up our two weeks' stay at Naples. T must not forget 
to mention our visit to the famous Neapolitan Opera House, 
and my first experience of an opera. One of the scenes 
represented an eruption of Vesuvius, and the whole per- 
formance was to me imposing and impressive. The sudden 
outburst of a stage-full of ballet-dancers in their gaudy 
costume almost took my breath away. I had never before 
seen the like. Our last glimpse of the real Vesuvius was 
as we gazed back on it from the car-windows, and saw it 
resting quietly under a mantle of snow. 

On leaving Naples, we lost the only through train to 
Borne. It was a Saturday afternoon, and we concluded to 
go to modern Capua. Early Sunday morning we drove 
to ancient Capua, two miles away, and there saw the un- 
covered substructions of the amphitheatre, of which the 
Colosseum at Rome was a smaller copy. It seated one 
hundred thousand people. The brick cells for wild animals, 
surrounding the arena, were as complete and fresh-looking 
as if less than ten years had passed over them. The vast 
spaces occupied by the hundred thousand spectators were 
then utilized as vegetable gardens. The few straggling and 
forlorn-looking houses on the site of the once great city 
suggested to the imagination a strange contrast with what 
must have met the eyes of Hannibal and his victorious 
soldiers during that winter of debauch which brought them 
to ruin. Few of the thousands of travellers who rush through 
Italy take the trouble of looking at old Capua. 

The day before the carnival we reached Rome, where we 
put in two months of as hard work as two vigorous people 
could well endure. In the morning it was some ruin, 
church, or picture-gallery, and usually in the afternoon St. 
Peter's or the Vatican. Eome had not then become the 



86 EZEKIEL GILMAN ROBINSON. 

capital of Italy, and the whole city was filled with traces of 
mediaeval Eornanism. Priests and monks abounded. For 
the first time in my life I began to appreciate painting and 
sculpture. Michael Angelo's " Pieta " at St. Peter's disap- 
pointed me ; but his " Moses" at " St. Pietro in Vincoli " im- 
pressed me to a degree of awe while standing in its presence. 
For the study of the " Last Judgment " and the frescos of the 
Sistine Chapel, we had a quiet and undisturbed day. It is 
impossible to recount the vivid scenes recalled by memory 
of visits to the Mamertine Prison, to the Pantheon, to the 
Forum and the triumphal arches, to the ruins of the Palace 
of the Caesars, to the Catacombs, to St. John Lateran, and to 
the Church of St. Clement. Around this last-named church 
we lingered with special interest, embodying as it does so 
much concrete illustration of ecclesiastical history. Itself 
below the level of the street, there is beneath it a complete 
church with beautiful marble pillars, erected doubtless in 
the ninth century ; and still beneath this are the remains of 
the oratory of St. Clement, without much doubt the Clement 
of Paul's epistle to the Eomans. 

We were with others introduced to Pope Pius IX. on one 
of his appointed days, and heard one of his fatherly ad- 
dresses. We saw a good deal of his Holiness during Holy 
Week, which we diligently observed by daily visits to St. 
Peter's. On one occasion the Holy Father gave an amusing 
specimen of his unconsciousness of being observed by 
spectators. He was kneeling and praying near the head 
of the stairway which leads to the tomb of St. Peter. 
Kesting in the midst of his devotions, and taking from his 
snuff-box a big pinch of snuff, he applied a huge red silk 
handkerchief to his nose with a report that sounded through 
the arches. He concluded the respite by clearing his throat 
with a loud " Ahem," and ejecting the contents of his mouth 



IN EUROPE. 87 

in the direction of the stairway with an energy worthy of 
a much younger man. The last we saw of the Holy Father 
was when, from an elevated balcony in front of St. Peter's, 
he sent forth his blessing upon the whole world, — a scene 
which was impressive or otherwise, according to the faith 
or imagination of the beholder. 

One most enjoyable day was spent in witnessing a fox- 
hunt on the Campagna. Many distinguished persons rode 
out from Rome to witness the scene, among whom was the 
famous actress, Charlotte Cushman, mounted on a very 
English-looking bob-tailed nag. A profitable forenoon was 
passed in visiting the gorgeously magnificent church of St. 
Paul's without the walls, then just completed, — a memorial 
of the Apostle on the supposed site of his martyrdom, but 
with no surrounding population to worship in it. Another 
day, now recalled with pleasant memories, was spent in a 
drive to Ostia, where convicts under guard were uncovering 
the ruins of an ancient temple, and in a return drive by way 
of Pliny's Villa, where, in memory of his fondness for rose- 
mary, which he specially mentions in one of his letters, we 
obtained several sprigs of the plant and brought them back 
to America. 

In the growing warmth of April we bade adieu to Eome, 
and turned our faces toward Florence, where the haunting 
memories of Galileo and Savonarola marred the pleasure I 
might otherwise have felt in its picture-galleries and splen- 
did works of art. Space would fail me to tell what I saw, 
thought, and felt on our way to Milan through the various 
historic cities of Middle and Northern Italy. At Venice, 
however, I may say we had the unexpected pleasure of 
occupying one of the three thousand gondolas which were 
massed together in the Grand Canal to welcome the arrival 
of Victor Emmanuel on his visit to that city in May, 1867. 



88 EZEKIEL GILMAN ROBINSON. 

Our position in the immediate vicinity of his gondola gave 
us a tine view of his imposing and ill-favored Majesty, At 
Milan it was impossible to forget, whether within the 
cathedral or on its lofty height, the one great Church father, 
Ambrose, who, above all others that ever trod its streets, 
had made the city famous. I could say this, though stand- 
ing in the presence of the imposing statue of Cavour, to 
whom is due the glory of having given to the Italians a 
united country. It was in Milan that an Italian gentleman 
congratulated me on the freedom of Americans, saying, 
" Here we are shackled by the domination of the priests 
over our women ; they extract from our wives and daughters 
all our secrets, and tie us hand and foot, both politically 
and religiously. " He had lived a good deal in England, 
and spoke English perfectly. 

Our sail over the Italian lakes and our crossing of the 
Alps by way of the St. Bernard Pass were accomplished in 
the brightest of sunshine ; but the ride by train down the 
Ehone from Brieg to Geneva, on the 3d of June, was 
through a snow-storm that would have graced a December 
day. .Vine-dressers in the vicinity of Geneva were in a 
panic on the following night, kindling great blazing fires in 
the vineyards to keep off the frost. The clergyman of the 
Anglican Church in Geneva preached a notable sermon the 
following Sunday, on the text, " Although the fig-tree 
shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines, " etc. 
(Habakkuk iii. 11-18). A dismal frost on the 4th of June 
swept from Geneva to England, killing everything in its 
way, and in England blasting the apple-blossoms. 

While we were in Geneva we were invited to take tea at 
Dr. Merle D'Aubignd's, or at Dr. Merle's, to employ the 
name by which he was usually called in Geneva. He 
came down from his library in a high state of mental exhil- 



IN EUROPE. 89 

aration. He had just discovered that when Calvin was the 
guest of the Duchess of Ferrara, Titian, the great Venetian 
colorist, was there also, and was so moved by Calvin that 
he was on the verge of joining his fortunes with those of 
the reformers. The historian was in a most genial mood, 
but I learned very little from him of his work as a theologi- 
cal professor. He was too much engrossed with his his- 
torical studies to be much interested in anything else. 

Lingering a week on our way from Geneva to Heidelberg, 
we remained at the latter place long enough to see and hear 
most of what was there attractive. I one day heard Eothe, 
then an old man whose lecture-room had once been thronged 
with hearers, lecturing to a class of thirteen, as ordinary- 
looking a set of young theologians as I had ever looked 
upon. A more complete absence of enthusiasm on the part 
of both lecturer and hearers could hardly be imagined. 
The professor rang endless changes on " das Absolut " 
throughout the lecture. I tried in vain to hear the then 
arch-heretic Schenkel. There were at that time in Heidel- 
berg no brilliant stars either in theology or philosophy. 

From Heidelberg we started for a July excursion through 
England and Scotland. Our route was by steamer down 
the Ehine. It was a German holiday ; our steamer was 
overcrowded ; hundreds stood at every stopping-place to 
rush on board ; the vigilant officers of the boat would let on 
board only just so many as disembarked. We endured the 
crowd as long as we could, gladly quitting the steamer at 
Bonn. We had a pleasant stay at this old university 
town. While there we called on the commentator and 
theologian Lange, a typical German professor, diminutive 
in size, with an oval, benign face, genial in expression, 
who gave us a hearty greeting. He introduced his wife, 
whose very fingers bespoke the hard-working German 



90 EZEKIEL GILMAN KOBINSON. 

housewife. His house showed plainly enough that he was 
not luxuriating on an over-large salary. From Bonn we 
made our way through Belgium and Holland, studying as 
diligently as we could the art of their galleries and 
churches. 

Crossing the North Sea to London, our purpose was to 
go up one side of England and down the other. We 
accordingly proceeded without delay to Cambridge. I 
went, of course, on Sunday to worship in the old chapel 
made memorable by the ministry of Bobert Hall in his 
palmiest days. It was a barn-like building, plain and 
unattractive. A very creditable sermon was preached by 
the Bev. Mr. Bobinson, who was then its pastor, and 
whom I found to be both communicative and agreeable. 
It was vacation ; none of the colleges were in session, and 
the professors whom I cared to see were out of town. The 
most that I could carry away with me from Cambridge were 
awakened memories of what I had read of its distinguished 
men in the past. Days spent in the cathedral towns of Ely 
and Peterborough aroused vivid thoughts of the differences 
between the England of to-day and the England of four or 
five centuries ago, when the cathedrals were erected, — piles 
of stone which no power short of the miraculous could erect 
to-day. Two or three days at Haworth, looking at its dirty 
village, the old historic church, the surrounding moors, 
gave an impression that no amount of reading could have 
given of the scenes amid which the brilliant genius of 
Charlotte Bronte* found birth. We were not a little inter- 
ested as well as amused at the garrulous communicativeness 
of the old landlady at the hotel, who was more than ready 
to tell us all she knew of the Bronte* household. 

Of an incident at Stirling, slight in itself, but of terrible 
possibilities, I still retain a vivid recollection. I had just 



IN EUROPE. 91 

been conversing with an American gentleman whom I had 
not seen since we parted in Italy ; and in a fit of abstraction 
I was about stepping from the platform to cross the railway 
track, when a strong hand on my arm gave me a sudden 
arrest. It was that of a policeman, who saved me from 
stepping directly in front of an incoming train. A sight 
of the immediate peril escaped sent every nerve of my body 
into a quiver. I remained rather a silent man in that 
day's excursion. On returning the following day to the 
station and giving a suitable expression of gratitude to the 
policeman who had saved me, I was curiously questioned 
as to what I was rewarding him for, and first found courage 
to speak of my narrow escape. 

What I saw at Melrose Abbey and felt at Abbotsford was 
only what everybody else sees and feels in visiting those 
localities. A visit to Dunblane, the seat and home of 
Archbishop Leighton, did not bring the satisfaction we 
expected. We saw his library, with its withered and 
worm-eaten bindings, carefully guarded in its locked and 
safely wired bookcase. His memory, so fragrant among the 
devout and studious, warrants more suggestive memorials 
of him than are furnished at Dunblane. 

Two weeks at Edinburgh, in exalted apartments from 
which we had a fine view of the Firth of Forth, were filled 
with what are still the pleasantest of memories. At every 
turn in its streets we were reminded of the distinguished 
men who in former generations had walked them, and 
who by profound religious conviction, as well as by their 
philosophy, history, and fiction, had impressed and moved 
the whole English-speaking world. The spirit of Knox 
seemed still to pervade the atmosphere, though faintly ; it 
was fast fading before the freer and less earnest though more 
enlightened spirit of our own day. Since the time of 



92 EZEKIEL GILMAN ROBINSON". 

Queen Mary and Knox, Hume, Adam Smith, Walter Scott, 
Sir William Hamilton, and others had contributed each 
his modicum of thought, out of which had sprung the 
Edinburgh of to-day, by no means now the epoch-breeding 
centre which it has so often been in the past. All that I 
saw of the great University of Edinburgh were its buildings 
and the interior of one of its chapels, where we attended a 
Sunday service. 

Erom Edinburgh we made a memorable tour through the 
Trossachs, favored with most delightful weather and with 
full views of scenes made famous by the genius of Scott. 
Our stay at Glasgow awakened far less interest, and gave us 
far less satisfaction than our experience at Edinburgh. The 
first object seen by us from our hotel window was a drunken 
father led by a delicate little daughter across the public 
square. In fact, we saw more drunkenness in Glasgow in 
a single hour than we had seen in all our three months' 
stay in Italy. The squalor, drunkenness, and manifest signs 
of poverty and wretchedness, everywhere apparent, were a 
most intelligible commentary on the life of Chalmers, and 
his herculean efforts at charity organizations for the relief 
of misery among the lower classes. It was an amusing 
answer which I got from an intelligent Scotchman when I 
asked for an explanation of the abounding drunkenness 
everywhere visible : " Their unsubstantial diet of oatmeal, " 
he said, " does not give them sufficient stamina to resist the 
intoxicating influence of even small drams. " 

Content with what we had seen of the homes of Scotch 
metaphysics and Presbyterianism, and of Scottish writers 
of history and fiction, we betook ourselves to localities 
made famous by poets, both Scotch and English. With a 
jaunty dog-cart drive through Ayrshire to Dumfries, past 
the unpoetic Burns cottage, glancing at the ruins of the old 



IN EUROPE. 93 

kirk, at the " auld brig" over the bonnie Doon, we filled up 
the day, and freshened our memories of Burns and his 
poetry. Poor Burns, with his inimitable poetry, his gross 
life, and his sad ending, became to me a more real, living 
personality than he had ever been before. Delightful days 
were spent by us at Windermere. The days of the Lake 
poets had gone by; only the houses of those who had once 
made the place notable still remained. Rydal Mount, the 
home of Wordsworth, was to us the chief attraction. But 
I was disappointed in the unpoetic aspect of both itself and 
its surroundings. In contrast with the halo which my 
mind had thrown around the poet, the place had to me the 
appearance of being the home of a hard-minded and common- 
place man. It was amusing to hear the old gardener speak 
of him as " a very near man," meaning by the Scotch term 
a man of penurious habits. A drive to Fox How warmed 
my heart anew toward the great teacher, Thomas Arnold, as 
I thought of the quiet enthusiasm with which he resorted 
hither to spend his vacations. A daughter graciously in- 
vited us in to look at a portrait of her father. 

Chester, notwithstanding the great antiquity of the place 
and its Eoman remains, failed to interest me, and we has- 
tened on to Oxford. But, alas, it was vacation in this Uni- 
versity town also, and we filled up our week's stay with 
daily visits to colleges, libraries, and whatever localities 
invited us and were open to inspection. We were told of 
an amusing instance of the antagonism then active between 
what was known as High Church and Broad Church. Mer- 
ton College held its chapel exercises in what was also a 
parish church. The head of Merton was an extremist of 
the Broad ; he would have only the baldest service permis- 
sible under the canon. The rector in all his services, Sun- 
days and Saints' days, insisted on the use of all the ritual 



94 EZEKIEL OILMAN ROBINSON. 

the canon allowed. One of the dreariest of services which 
I attended at Oxford was in a church then and for genera- 
tions under the control of the Evangelical party of the 
Anglican Church. The sermon was but little above reli- 
•gious drivel ; the congregation was small, and showed but 
little interest. 

At Stratford-on-Avon, remembering what Hawthorne had 
written of Miss Bacon and her insanity while at work on 
her theory of the origin of the Shakespeare tragedies, we 
were interested in hearing from the person of whom she 
hired lodgings his account of her and her visits to the old 
church. At Kenilworth it was impossible for me, while 
looking at the ruins, to shake off the impressions made on 
me by Scott's novel, which I had read in the impression- 
able years of student-life. 

It was a luxury to sit down in London for a day or two 
of rest after the hurried month of sight-seeing through Eng- 
land and Scotland. I spent one most profitable Sunday morn- 
ing in going to Spurgeon's Tabernacle, not so much to hear 
him preach as to look at and study his congregation. An 
account of what I then saw I have furnished for Dr. H. L. 
Wayland's " Life of Mr. Spurgeon. " : An afternoon in the 

1 [From "Wayland's " Spurgeon," pp. 101-102.] Happening to be in London 
on a summer Sunday evening, I went to the Tabernacle, getting there 
designedly after the services had begun and with the purpose of looking at 
the audience from its rear. I looked in for a moment at the main entrance 
on the first floor, and then at the entrance on the second floor, where, from 
the junction of the great galleries, there was an imposing view of the vast 
throng of worshippers below ; and then climbing a much narrower stairway, 
I went up to see what could be found above. On this third landing were two 
open doors, disclosing two triangular rooms, the base of the triangle opening 
wide toward the preacher, so that all in the rooms could have full view of 
him, and he a full view of them. Remote as these rooms were from the 
preacher (they covered the broad hallways of the first two floors), every 
word was distinctly audible. Every seat also was occupied, and apparently 
by young people employed in some kind of humble service. In a narrow 



IN EUROPE. 95 

House of Commons offered little or nothing worth remem- 
bering except a study of the faces of Gladstone and Disraeli, 
as they sat near and opposite each other. An evening in 
the House of Lords was full of interest. The notables of 
both parties were present, — the then Earl of Derby, trans- 
lator of Homer ; the little sandy-haired Duke of Argyle ; 
Lord John Russell, who had ceased to act with either party; 
Lord Stanley, the son and successor of the Earl of Derby; 
and others. There was an amusing discussion over the 
bequest of a certain Mr. Brown, who had bequeathed to the 
city of London some nineteen thousand pounds, to be avail- 
able, after twenty years' accumulation, for establishing a 
hospital for sick animals. If the city of London declined 
to comply with the conditions of the bequest, it was to go 
to the University of Dublin. The twenty years had 
elapsed, and London was not complying with the condi- 
tions. The Bishop of Dublin made a very animated speech 
claiming the bequest for Dublin University. His Lordship 
was specially satirical in denouncing the scheme of a hos- 
pital for " sick dogs. " 

We had arranged to spend the month of August in Paris 
for the study of the great city, its art, its churches, its 
historical localities, and its great exposition of 1867, then 
attracting to itself the attention of the world. We spent 
some pleasant hours there in re-reading Carlyle's " French 
Revolution," and in visiting the localities of scenes and 
occurrences so vividly described by him. We went, one 
Sunday morning, to a service at the French Baptist Mis- 
aisle of one of the rooms stood one of the most forlorn and wretched-looking 
of human beings, a man in soiled and tattered clothes, with uncombed and 
matted hair, with a battered hat in his hand, unnoticed and un noticing, but 
listening as if transfixed and nailed to the floor. It was the most touching 
sight I had ever seen in a house of worship. A more emphatic testimony to 
the preacher's power could not have been given. — E. G. R. 



96 EZEKIEL GILMAN KOBINSON". 

si on. The meeting was held in a small apartment, and 
baptism was administered in a decidedly novel manner. 
The candidate and administrator left the room where we 
were assembled, and passed through a door into an adjoin- 
ing apartment. We saw nothing, but heard a voice and 
the splash of water. I was told, afterwards, that the can- 
didate was immersed in a tub, the administrator standing 
outside of it. The impression made on me by all that I 
saw — the preacher, the assemblage, and the service — was 
that of a sad lack of good judgment and good taste. It was 
while in Paris that I first learned that Eev. J. Gr. Warren 
had been commissioned to see me about my becoming pres- 
ident of Brown University, and that he wished to know 
where we could meet for a conference. During our stay in 
Paris I preached several times in the American Chapel. 

Leaving Paris, we made a dash into the Alps. Lucerne, 
Interlachen, Stanbach, all left their impressions; but one 
red-letter day, hot and sultry in the valley, stands forth 
most vividly in my mind, — a day when, on the Wengern 
Alp, we had full view of successive avalanches from the 
Jungfrau, plunging and thundering into the abyss below. 
It was a most awe-inspiring spectacle. A cooling walk in 
the ice-cave at the foot of the Grindelwald glacier was a 
fitting conclusion to the day. 

Early in September we were again at Heidelberg, on our 
way to Berlin, where I hoped to spend some months in 
study. We stopped at Munich, Leipsic, and Dresden. In 
the latter place we concentrated our attention on the art- 
galleries, and especially on the Sistine Madonna. No 
copyist and no engraver of that picture has ever yet suc- 
ceeded in catching the Divine that looks out from the eyes 
of the babe. No photograph even speaks as does the origi- 
nal. Instead of the eight months' work at Berlin, which 



IN EUROPE. 97 

I had looked forward to, I was limited to four by the neces- 
sity of answering the perplexing question suggested by the 
overtures of Brown University, — a question which could 
not be answered without returning home. Our leisure 
hours were diligently employed in the study of the lan- 
guage, guided by one of the best of instructors. Contin- 
uous study in connection with any one of the University 
professors did not seem to be the best use I could make of 
my time. I accordingly attended the lectures of those only 
who most attracted me, among whom I remember Hengsten- 
berg, Dorner, and some of the younger and the less-known 
scholars. Hengstenberg, who drawled and bawled out his 
dictation from manuscripts conspicuously yellow with age, 
was one of the least inspiring lecturers I ever listened to, 
and his auditors gave as little indication of interest as I 
myself felt. Dorner's lecture-room was packed. He was 
at the height of his popularity. The students were anx- 
ious to catch every word. Any one making the least noise, 
by entrance or otherwise, was hissed. His quiet manner 
was in sharp contrast with the noisy restlessness of Heng- 
stenberg. I remember spending one specially pleasant 
evening at Dr. Dorner's house, attending a meeting of a 
theological Socidat, a small body of picked men, of whom 
Professor Briggs l was one. It was he who introduced me 
to Dr. Dorner. A few days after, Dr. Dorner called on me ; 
we indulged in rather a wide range of conversation, touching 
on various theological questions in both their German and 
their American phases. There was little to choose between 
his broken English and my broken German. I recall also 
one delightful evening spent at the tea-table of Professor 
Piper, who had been an admiring pupil of Keander, and 

1 At this writing there is only one " Professor Briggs," — Charles A. 
Briggs, D. D., of Union Theological Seminary, New York. — Ed. 

7 



98 EZEKIEL GILMAN EOBINSON. 

was giving his chief attention to Monumentale TJieologie and 
to the editing of a highly prized Almanac. Professor Piper 
was a bachelor, keeping house with an elderly maiden 
sister. We sat down at the tea-table a little past six in 
the evening, and left it at eleven. He was a most enter- 
taining conversationalist, and was quite out of patience 
with me for not being eagerly desirous of visiting- the Holy 
Land. He amazed me by his familiarity with the history 
of our government, repeating, without hesitation, the whole 
list of our presidents from Washington down to date. I 
have also a very distinct remembrance of an evening spent 
at a meeting of a theological debating society, where I was 
both amused and instructed by the German methods of 
doing things. The society consisted of the most brilliant 
and promising young men of the University, among them 
sons of Dr. Dorner, Professor Eanke, the historian, and 
other distinguished professors. The meeting was held in 
one of the rooms of a restaurant, which was a common 
resort of students. The members were seated alongside of 
dining-tables, and each one had his huge glass of beer 
before him. A paper was read, by one who appeared to be 
the youngest member of the club, on the doctrine of the 
Trinity, as taught in the Old Testament. The essayist 
stated and defended, with much skill and scholarship, the 
old orthodox position, which evidently did not command 
the assent of a majority of his hearers. A fellow-student, 
.who was the appointed critic of the essay, had not half fin- 
ished his first sentence when I was quite startled out of my 
gravity by a sudden and, to me, unexplained outcry from 
the whole assemblage. The critic, it seemed, was attempt- 
ing to read from a manuscript in his possession. The rule 
was that the criticism should be strictly extemporaneous. 
We had a novel experience in the celebration of our 



IN EUROPE. 99 

American Thanksgiving, which was presided over by our 
American minister, Mr. Bancroft, and at which certain 
government officials assisted. Mr. Bancroft, in his intro- 
ductory speech at the banquet, indulged indiscriminately 
in English and German, throwing in paragraphs of either 
language as the fancy struck him. It had been my fate to 
preach in the morning, at the American Chapel, a Thanks- 
giving sermon, after the true American style. We were all 
loyal to forefathers' custom in observing the annual festival. 
During our stay in Berlin the American Church dedicated 
a new house of worship. I was waited upon by Mr. Theo- 
dore Fay, formerly American minister to the Helvetian 
Eepublic, as chairman of a committee to invite me to preach 
the dedication sermon. But having given the invitation, 
he added, " Knowing you to be a Baptist, it is no more 
than just to say that at the close of the dedication we pro- 
pose to celebrate the Lord's Supper, to which we are to 
invite all Christian people of whatever church, and even 
members of no church, if devoutly Christian. " To accept 
the invitation would place me in an awkward predicament, 
and, of course, I declined it, and did not attend the dedica- 
tion service. 

The urgency of friends at Brown University, and the still 
greater urgency of friends at Eochester that I should not 
leave the Seminary, made an earlier return home impera- 
tive. We accordingly turned our faces homeward. In 
Halle we enjoyed a Sunday evening reception at Dr. Tho- 
luck's. Both he and Madame Tholuck were in their hap- 
piest moods. Much had been said in the newspapers about 
his coming to America to attend the Evangelical Alliance 
to be held in the following year. At his expression of a 
wish to come, Madame Tholuck, patting him on the shoul- 
der, said softly, " Nein, nein ; " whereupon he laughingly 



100 EZEKIEL GILMAN ROBINSON. 

added, " I am too much afraid of your democracy and your 
hot cakes. " That Sunday morning had opened with the 
most dismal of drenching rains ; but before daylight we 
were awakened by a chorus of sweet male voices under our 
windows. Boys and young men from the Francke Orphan 
House, on their way to church, were singing their Advent 
carols. They were interesting to see as well as to hear, as 
they stood ranged along the curbstone in their " stove-pipe " 
hats, unprotected from the pouring rain. In the afternoon, 
when the sun came out, we went to a service in the old 
church where Tholuck had once preached famous sermons 
to thronging congregations. Sitting amid the meagre assem- 
blage, I tried, in vain to bring back in imagination the 
great preacher and entranced audience of which I had once 
read glowing accounts. I heard nothing from German pul- 
pits corresponding, in any degree, to what I had read of the 
preaching of Schleiermacher and Tholuck. 

At Cologne we, of course, filled our minds with all we 
could drink in of its great cathedral. It was our second 
visit to it, and the last that we were to see of the great 
cathedrals of Europe. We hastened to London, picked up 
the traps we had left there, and on Christmas day, just one 
year from the day of our landing, we sailed from Liverpool 
for America. The sixteen horrible stormy days of that 
passage home will never be forgotten. 

On reaching Rochester I hastened to Providence in re- 
sponse to the invitation of friends of Brown University ; and 
in spite of all that they could say in behalf of my taking the 
presidency, the conviction became clear and settled that duty 
required me to continue my connection with the Rochester 
Seminary. The very considerable amounts promised the 
Seminary would be likely to be lost by my withdrawal from 
it. Its friends had also given me a year of rest, and justice 



LAST YEARS IN ROCHESTER. 101 

seemed to me to require that I should continue in its ser- 
vice. The decision to remain gave me a most welcome 
quiet of mind. 

Finding myself back again in Eochester about the middle 
of January, 1868, with a clear conscience as to duty, I set- 
tled down to % my work with the zest natural to a man whose 
appetite had been whetted by long abstinence. With the 
class graduating in 1867, and up to that time with the class 
of 1868, my instruction had been fragmentary, and to me, 
as of course it must have been to them, far from satisfac- 
tory. Theology as a department of knowledge never seemed 
to me more attractive than it did then, and I think I never 
saw more clearly the relation of its great doctrines to one 
another, or more need of a thorough grounding of religious 
teaching in a theology which should be both scriptural and 
philosophical. One abiding impression left on me in my 
European and particularly in my English observations was 
the inestimable value to a preacher of the gospel of a com- 
prehensive theological training such as was furnished in our 
theological schools, and was not then furnished in any of 
the ministerial training-schools of England. The superiority 
of the average well-trained American preacher to the average 
English preacher was quickly discernible to any impartial 
observer. I felt a sort of divine call to persist in theological 
teaching. 

When I came back, we had a broken faculty. During 
this year there was almost no working force. Professor 
Northrup had resigned the chair of Ecclesiastical History 
during my absence, to accept the chair of Systematic Theology 
in the Baptist Union Theological Seminary at Chicago. 
Hebrew was taught by the Eev. J. H. Gilmore, pastor of the 
Second Baptist Church in Eochester ; New Testament Exe- 
gesis was in the thoroughly equipped hands of Dr. Kendrick; 



102 EZEKIEL GILMAN ROBINSON. 

the chair of Ecclesiastical History was vacant. The Sem- 
inary was, in fact, but little more than half manned in its 
teaching force. But before we could venture to fill vacan- 
cies, long strides needed to be taken toward completing an 
endowment. It seemed insane to invite professors, with no 
money to pay their salaries. Guardians and friends of the 
Seminary saw and felt the need of immediate action. John 
B. Trevor, Esq. , of Yonkers, New York, came to our rescue 
in furnishing the means for a local habitation. The lot at the 
corner of East Avenue and Alexander Street was purchased, 
and steps were taken for the immediate erection of Trevor 
Hall, — a hall which, when completed in the following 
autumn, furnished dormitories for students, and rooms in 
which, though contracted, lectures were given. A fresh 
start was thus made, and contributions toward an endow- 
ment were more rapidly secured. This same spring Jacob 
E. Wycoff, Esq., of New York, came forward, and gener- 
ously purchased a house to be occupied by the president of 
the Seminary, whose salary, also, the trustees had spontane- 
ously raised to $4000. The purchase of this house proved 
unfortunate. Though sold by its owner at what he claimed 
to be considerably less than its value, a most desirable house, 
and on one of the choice streets of the city, it proved, 
through violation of every principle of sanitary drainage, a 
perfect malarial trap. A liability to malarial attacks, from 
which I had suffered before going abroad, now returned 
with redoubled frequency and force. The recurrence of these 
attacks seemed inexplicably mysterious until a too late 
discovery of the defective drainage. This aggravation of a 
long-settled disorder resulted in finally driving me from 
Bochester. 

In the summer of 1868 it became imperatively necessary 
that steps should be taken toward filling vacant chairs in 



LAST YEARS IN ROCHESTER. 103 

the faculty of the Seminary. Our most urgent need was 
an occupant for the chair of Hebrew; but where to find him 
was a question which brought back only an empty echo. I 
betook myself to Dr. Hackett at Newton Centre for his 
advice as to the fittest young man for the vacancy. He 
i recommended as one among the fittest of his former scholars, 
Mr. George H. Whittemore, a gentleman of fine culture, a 
critical scholar, and a most painstaking teacher. He was 
still one of the members of the faculty when my connection 
with the Seminary ceased. 

Entering our new home, Trevor Hall, with the opening 
of the session in the autumn of 1868, every one of us, in- 
structors and students alike, felt ourselves called to fresh 
activity. For the first time in my Eochester experience the 
Seminary seemed to have a future. We got the Neancler 
Library into a shape in which it would be available for daily 
use. We began to receive new books, for the importation of 
which I had made arrangements while abroad in 1867. The 
session of 1868-69 stands conspicuous, in memory, as one 
of the pleasantest and most encouraging of all my Eochester 
experience. It was the faint beginning in the realization 
of hopes long cherished, toiled for, and patiently awaited. 

But the time had then come for prompt and vigorous 
efforts to secure the funds conditionally promised and before 
alluded to. The efforts were happily successful. We were 
then in a condition to fill the vacant chair of Church His- 
tory. We were not long in finding a man for it in the per- 
son of Eev. Dr. E. J. W. Buckland, then pastor of the 
church in New York City, since made famous as the Calvary 
Baptist Church, under the ministrations of the Eev. Dr. 
MacArthur. In connection, however, with the election of 
Dr. Buckland, which had been greatly desired by friends 
who knew his worth, an addition to our endowment of 



104 EZEKIEL GILMAN ROBINSON. 



),000, on which I had confidently calculated, was lost to 
us through the inexperience and maladroitness of one of the 
Seminary's functionaries. 

With a growing endowment there was also a growing desire 
to add to our Faculty men of the highest qualifications and 
repute. The full time and strength of my dear friend, Dr. 
Kendrick, whose New Testament expositions had been 
invaluable to us, were then urgently needed in the duties of 
his University chair. A renewed application to enter the 
service of the Seminary was accordingly made to the Eev. 
Dr. Hackett, who had previously resigned his position at 
Newton Theological Institution. To this proposition he 
assented, joining us in the beginning of the session of 1870. 
His coming gave new impetus to us all. Every student 
in the Seminary was anxious to be under his instruction. 
It was accordingly arranged that on certain days the whole 
Seminary should be brought together in the chapel for the 
study of the First Epistle of John, — an epistle which, on 
account of its difficulties, he said that through all his long 
experience he had hitherto abstained from teaching. The 
Professor himself, according to his own admission, was never 
happier in his work, or taught, as we know, with more com- 
plete satisfaction to his pupils. 

It was during the session beginning in 1870 that I first 
felt at liberty to attempt anything in the way of post- 
graduate instruction. Four of our alumni, three of whom 
have since made a reputation for themselves as professors, 
avowed their desire to form a class for graduate study. 1 
The only time alike possible for me and acceptable to them 
was the evening. We accordingly met evenings, in my 
study, beginning work as early as practicable after seven 

1 The names of these students are given in the contribution of Professor 
True. — Ed. 



LAST YEARS IN ROCHESTER. 105 

o'clock, and separating rarely, if ever, before eleven. 
Papers were presented by members of the class, on which 
free, full, and critical discussion followed. 

No year of my Rochester life had, to myself, been equally 
satisfactory with this, and I think none had been more 
profitable to the students. The need for outside work in 
behalf of the Seminary had been greatly lessened, and there 
was the long-wished-for opportunity for a more full state- 
ment and defence of my own theological views. To the 
work of this statement and defence my last two years at 
Rochester were earnestly given ; 1 and they were years 
which, on the whole, I am disposed to regard as the best of 
my life as an instructor ; but they were years overshadowed 
by clouds of ever-recurring illness. Attacks came, often 
most inopportunely, making the fulfilment of engagements 
impracticable. A malarial affection had become so deep- 
seated as to resist all medical treatment, and to make unin- 
terrupted labor impossible. The outlook for continued life 
in Rochester was of the dismallest. 

1 The revised statement was printed as far as half-way through the doc- 
trine of Regeneration, and the printed sheets stored in the library of the 
Seminary. Since the death of Dr. Robinson Professor B. 0. True, D. D., 
has compiled the remaining lectures from the notes of earlier classes, and 
the whole has been published by Mr. E. R. Andrews, of Rochester. — Ed. 



106 EZEKIEL GILMAN ROBINSON. 



I 



CHAPTEE V. 

PRESIDENCY OF BROWN. 
1872-1889. 

N the spring of 1871 there came again a proposal that I 
should accept the presidency of Brown University. 
The proposal was not an enticing one. The duties of a 
college president were far from attractive to me. The change 
involved what seemed to me a descent to a lower and less 
useful sphere of labor. But the prospect of relief from 
malarial affections by a return to the climate in which I had 
been born and bred, had its weight. An immediate deci- 
sion was impossible ; my mind hung in suspense over the 
question of duty. In the summer of 1871 a committee, con- 
sisting of members of the Corporation of the University, fol- 
lowed me to the White Mountains, whither I had gone for 
recreation. They reasoned skilfully. Two of that commit- 
tee, Dr. S. L. Caldwell and Dr. Heman Lincoln, have passed 
away. Dr. Hovey, the third member of the committee, still 
lives [July, 1893]. The summer ended without a decision. 
In the early winter the late Gardiner Colby, one of the Uni- 
versity Trustees, desiring to try his hand at argument, in- 
vited me to meet him at the Delavan House in Albany, New 
York. I still remained in doubt as to what I ought to do ; 
but a variety of considerations finally brought me to a deci- 
sion. Funds long promised for the endowment of the 
Seminary had been secured. It was on a safe pecuniary 
foundation, and its future was assured. Nothing would be 



PRESIDENCY OF BROWN. 107 

perilled by my leaving it. On the other hand, regard for 
health, obligation as an alumnus of the University to go to 
its aid in the hour of its need, whispered suggestions of un- 
soundness in my teachings, the moral certainty of a coming 
revolution in theologic thought, — all combined to bring me 
to the conclusion that I ought not to refuse acceptance of 
the unwelcome call. If I had foreseen the pain which my 
decision would give to the friends of the Seminary, and 
especially to my old teacher, and at that time my colleague, 
Eev. Dr. Hackett, 1 it would have been reached, if at all, 
even more reluctantly than it was. But the die was cast, 
and in August, 1872, my back was turned on the scene of 
more than nineteen years earnest and sometimes most ex- 
hausting labor. A three weeks' drive with a span of spirited 
horses from Eochester to Providence, across the States of 
New York, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, and Pihode Island, 
gave a most welcome opportunity for a needed and inspir- 
ing recreation. It also <rave me a much better idea than I 
ever before possessed of the rural portions and populations 
of those States. 

I found the University in a much less promising condition 
than I had hoped. The lack of enterprise on the part both 
of its governing Board and its Faculty gave me a most dis- 
piriting impression. I could think of nothing but a heavily 
loaded team stalled in the mud. The Corporation was radi- 
cally divided into two opposing parties, irreconcilable in 
aims and methods, and mutually jealous. It was no easy 
task to unite them on any single line of action. A bitter 
antagonism which had been developed a few years previously 
between an existing Executive Committee and the Corpora- 
tion had resulted in the abolition of the committee. A 
forward step in any direction was accordingly impossible 
1 For Dr. Hackett's tribute, see Note D. at end of this chapter. 



108 EZEKIEL GILMAN ROBINSON". 

during the interval between one annual meeting of the 
Corporation and another. My immediate predecessor in 
the presidency, one of the most amiable, and estimable of 
men, from his long previous connection with the University 
as professor was profoundly interested in its welfare; but 
knowing that he held the office only temporarily, he did not 
feel it his duty to take the initiative in any onward move- 
ment. In fact, the lethargy of the governing Boards gave 
little promise of success, had he attempted it. 

But whatever the lack of animation in the past on the 
part of the authorities of the College, there was a sudden 
disclosure of life and liveliness on the part of the students 
which opened my eyes to an unexpected phase of the duties 
of my new office. My experience up to this time had been 
among students who had required no discipline and no over- 
sight. The disclosure came on this wise : On going one 
day into chapel for morning prayers, I noticed considerable 
numbers of the students lingering in front of the chapel, 
instead of immediately entering it, as was their custom. 
I was too inexperienced to see any meaning in their delay. 
But when the bell had ceased its tolling, and the chapel door 
was closed, I was surprised to find only a portion of the 
Senior class, and fewer still of the Juniors in their places, 
while the seats of the Sophomore and Freshman classes were 
almost wholly empty. The reading of Scripture was hardly 
begun when* loud shouts were heard outside, and immedi- 
ately the clamor and tramp of rushing students filled the 
air. Before the conclusion of the exercises the uproar had 
died away into a distant murmur. Bat on leaving the 
chapel a most comical scene met the eye. Under a steadily 
falling rain the ground was covered with text-books, note- 
books, coats, hats, waistcoats, fragments of shirts and flan- 
nels, while from the lower end of the campus came two or 



PRESIDENCY OF BROWN. 109 

three bareheaded, half -stripped Sophomores, bearing in 
triumph the offending cane. Amid shouts by the victors, 
the discomfited Freshmen went about silently picking up 
their belongings as they could find them. This " cane-rush" 
was only one of a series of regular, or rather irregular, 
escapades to which the students, under the extreme leniency 
of my immediate official predecessor, had become accus- 
tomed. Cane-rushes at any hour of the day or evening, 
nightly bonfires with horn-blowing, an occasional hazing 
of a green Freshman, were established amusements. It 
was evident that the College was to be ruled by disorderly 
men, or there must be an immediate reform. How to effect 
this was a puzzle. Private remonstrance and appeals to a 
sense of honor and right feeling availed nothing. Sus- 
pensions and other penalties excited resentment as an 
unwarranted restriction of student-rights. A long-estab- 
lished practice of mock programmes at the Junior Exhibi- 
tion reached a stage of indecency and blasphemy. Drastic 
measures became a necessity. In due time a healthier tone 
prevailed ; and years before my withdrawal from office a 
more quiet and orderly body of students could not be 
desired. 1 

I found the range of instruction at the University nar- 
rower than that of most of the New England colleges. Its 

1 As to Dr. Robinson's methods as a disciplinarian, a member of the 
class of 1876 writes : " He aimed to do away with that state of affairs which 
made any extended discipline necessary. He tried from the very beginning 
to get into the students' minds that hazing and disorder of any kind was 
unworthy of them ; and in this he was supported by my class, his first Fresh- 
man class, who in their Sophomore year simply refused in any way to annoy 
the Freshman class, and thus did what they could to abolish all remaining 
relics of barbarism in Brown University. After Dr. Robinson had been at 
Brown a few years, the whole tone of the college life in these respects, as 
well as in study and work, greatly improved. He frequently alludes to this 
himself in his Reports to the Corporation from 1878 on, especially in the last, 
that for 1889." — A. G. L. 



110 EZEKIEL GILMAN KOBINSON. 

only professorships in Natural Science were those of 
Chemistry and of Physics; under the latter term was in- 
cluded instruction in Light, Heat, and Electricity. It had 
no professorship of Modern Languages, instruction in French 
being given by a gentleman employed to teach it to the 
Sophomores a portion of the year. He found it extremely 
difficult to keep order in his class, and his instruction, 
accordingly, resulted only in an extremely imperfect knowl- 
edge of the language. German was taught to the Seniors 
as an elective by the senior professor of Latin. The only 
instruction in Geology was given in a brief course of lectures 
by the professor of Chemistry. The professor of Physics 
was saddled with the duty of teaching Physiology, a com- 
bination of duties more amusing than reasonable ; and the 
professor of Pdietoric, who alone was responsible for all the 
instruction given in the English Language and Literature, 
had the additional load laid on him of teaching Logic. 
Any change in this distribution of duties seemed at the 
outset almost impossible. 

The lack of professorships in the Faculty was more than 
equalled by the lack of buildings in which the work of the 
University could be properly performed. The professor of 
Physics had no laboratory ; the clamp, dark basement rooms 
of Ehode Island Hall, which he attempted to utilize as a 
laboratory, could be occupied by him only at the risk of his 
health and life. The apparatus which should have been at 
his command he had found scattered about, and much of it, 
from long neglect, scarcely fitted for use. He was dis- 
couraged, and talked seriously to me of resigning his 
professorship. The library was crowded into the dark 
room on the first floor of the chapel building, and was so 
crammed with books, two or three feet deep on the shelves, 
that only the librarian could find what was wanted. There 



PRESIDENCY OF BROWN. Ill 

were only two dormitories ; and the rooms of these, to any 
young man coming from a well-furnished home, were unin- 
viting and even repulsive. He could have but a single 
room, not over fifteen feet square, in which to sleep and to 
study ; and ordinarily two were expected to occupy it. The 
older of the two buildings had been used as barracks for 
French soldiers at one time during our Eevolutionary "War. 
Its battered doors, its defaced walls, the gaping flooring of 
its hall-ways, and the unmistakable odor of decay pervad- 
ing the building, made parents who came to select rooms 
for their sons, turn from the premises with ill-concealed 
disgust. The other dormitory, erected in 1822, had inside 
and out fewer marks of age, but was only a little less unin- 
viting than the older building. The entries and stairways 
of the dormitories had never been lighted at night; students 
groped their way up and down as best they could. The 
introduction of gas was regarded by some of them as a 
curtailment of their nocturnal privileges ; and when the 
mayor, at my solicitation, planted lamp-posts along the 
walks of the campus, there were grave discussions whether 
this was not an invasion of rights that should be resisted. 
When told that any one meddling with the lamps would be 
dealt with by the city authorities, they inquired of the 
mayor if this was true. His short, sharp, decisive answer 
gave them immediate pause, and not a lamp was ever med- 
dled with. I may add here that the front campus was a 
mere hay-field, mowed once a year, just before Commence- 
ment Day. The grading of this campus and the introduc- 
tion of the lawn-mower were regarded with a favor more 
than equal to the disfavor first felt toward the lamp-posts. 
The middle and the back campus were used as a cow- 
pasture. 

The University, after more than a century of its 



112 EZEKIEL GILMAN ROBINSON. 

existence, had for its work, all told, only five buildings : 
two dormitories, the chemical laboratory, the chapel build- 
ing, and Khode Island Hall, which had originally been 
erected as a chemical laboratory, but had been converted 
into recitation-rooms and a hall for portraits. Out of all 
the recitation-rooms three only could be regarded as even 
tolerably fitted to their uses, — two in Ehode Island Hall, 
and one on the second floor of the Chemical Laboratory. 

There was, however, one encouraging feature in the aspect 
of the University's affairs, — it had a surplus income. 
The financial report of the year preceding my entrance on 
my duties showed a net balance of four thousand dollars. 
The University had been run on principles as strictly 
economic as any cotton-mill in the State of Rhode Island. 
The use that could be made of this surplus required no long 
deliberation. The provision of a laboratory for the professor 
of Physics was an imperative necessity. To meet this 
necessity an addition to Ehode Island Hall was proposed, 
and, after some urging, was accomplished. The slowness 
of movement in this and in immediately subsequent steps 
could be easily understood by any one who knew the com- 
position of the Executive Committee, through whom the 
initiative was necessarily taken. The four leading men of 
that committee were past seventy years of age, and could 
not readily see why the University should not go on as it 
had been Tor a long time doing. More than once I have 
seen one or another of those elderly gentlemen during the 
committee meetings struggling hard with drooping eyelids 
to keep himself from nodding an involuntary assent to 
what was said. 

The little physical laboratory was immediately recognized 
as a decided improvement, and gave me encouragement to 
believe that something further might be attempted. There 



PRESIDENCY OF BROWN. 113 

were two wants which were an obvious discredit to a Univer- 
sity of a hundred years' standing, — a deplorable need of 
new departments of instruction and new professorships, and 
an equally urgent need of new buildings for the use of these. 
Which of these deficiencies to remedy first was a question 
not easily answered. Neither one of them could wait till 
the other should be supplied. We were stifled and cramped 
for lack of buildings, and I was ashamed of the narrow 
range of studies open to our students, particularly in the 
Natural Sciences and in Modern Languages. The necessity 
was inexorable that we should strike at once for a widened 
curriculum and for new buildings. Fortunately, when the 
question was in suspense whether I would accept the pres- 
idency of the University, Mr. H. N. Slater, Sr. , a member 
of the Board of Fellows, and one of the most liberal benefac- 
tors which the University had had up to that date, sent me 
word that, if I would accept the office, he would give twenty- 
five thousand dollars to be applied in such way as might be 
deemed best for the interests of the College. With his con- 
sent, this money, with its accumulated interest, was used 
in the erection of a dormitory, since known as Slater Hall, 
in which were suites of rooms in keeping with modern modes 
of living. 

Mr. John Carter Brown, at his decease, had bequeathed 
fifty thousand dollars and a valuable plot of ground adjacent 
to the college premises for the erection of a Library Build- 
ing. As soon as a cloud on the title of the ground, which 
Mr. Brown himself was intending to remove, had been 
lifted, and the sum bequeathed had become sufficient to 
warrant it, three architects were invited to prepare competi- 
tive plans. After mature deliberation, the walls of a new 
fire-proof home for the library began slowly to arise. The 
day on which the beautiful and commodious building was 



114 EZEKIEL GILMAN" EOBINSON. 

dedicated to its uses was one of great rejoicing to all friends 
of the University. The general satisfaction was enhanced 
by the announcement that the entire balance of the cost of 
erection had been generously provided for by Mrs. Brown, 
the widow of the donor. The books were now well housed, 
but professors and students were still suffering in ill- 
ventilated and incommodious lecture-rooms. 

At this juncture Mr. William F. Sayles came to our 
rescue. His oldest son, a promising youth of manly spirit 
and bearing, a student in the University, had been suddenly 
stricken with an affection of the lungs, and, after a rapid de- 
cline, had passed away. His parents were overwhelmed with 
grief. Wishing to perpetuate their son's memory, his father 
proposed the erection of some kind of memorial to him on 
the college grounds. It required but short deliberation to 
determine the form the memorial should take. It was 
decided to erect a building of sufficient dimensions to con- 
tain a hall for alumni dinners on Commencement occasions, 
and some half-do/en lecture -rooms. Sayles Hall was a 
worthy monument to a worthy son. It was, still is, and 
bids fair long to be, architecturally the most satisfactory of 
all the University buildings. The solidity of the structure, 
its fine proportions and severe simplicity, along with the 
thorough sincerity of every inch of its masonry and car- 
penter work, insure its beauty and soundness for centuries 
to come. To the lasting credit of Mr. Sayles be it said, 
that, when the site for the Hall was selected, he foresaw the 
necessity of regrading the middle campus on which it was 
to front, and in his own mind he determined it should be 
done. Till then it had presented to the eye on its northern 
side, toward Waterman Street, an ungrassed and unsightly 
bank, and over the whole area its uneven surface reminded 
one of the recent days when it had been used as a cow- 



PRESIDENCY OF BROWN. 115 

pasture. On the completion of the building, Mr. Sayles 
insisted that the campus should then be graded and put in 
order. The result was one of the most beautiful spots in 
the city of Providence. 

While in the humor of grading the middle campus, it 
occurred to some of us that, by the requisite grading and 
filling up of an unsightly swamp-hole, the eastern slope and 
terminus of the college land on Thayer Street could be trans- 
formed into much needed ball-grounds. The only perplexing 
question in the case was how to raise the necessary funds. 
One man only in the Faculty, Professor S. S. Greene, felt 
interest enough in the matter to give himself and his time 
to raising the money and superintending the work. Quietly, 
and without words, he took the work in hand, and persisted 
in it till the task was completed. It was a laborious under- 
taking, and to Professor Greene alone belonged all the credit 
of its successful accomplishment. 

There still remained the old University Hall, both within 
and without an eyesore and a reproach. The grave ques- 
tion was, What should be done with it? The loud demand 
of many friends of the College was to level it to the ground, 
and to put up a modern structure in its place. A few of us 
were equally earnest in insisting that the old walls should 
stand, and the interior be entirely renewed. Minutest in- 
spection could discover not so much as the sign of a crack in 
its walls. Ptenovation was resolved on, but the perplexing 
question was how to raise funds for the purpose. Fifty 
thousand dollars was the least it could be done for. The 
late Chief Justice Bradley was made chairman of the com- 
mittee to superintend the renovation, and the fifty thousand 
dollars were soon raised by subscription. Few improve- 
ments made during my connection with the University 
gave more general satisfaction. 



116 EZEKIEL GILMAN ROBINSON. 

Some two or three years before this I had been waited 
on by a gentleman who desired a private interview. When 
quietly seated in my study, he pulled from his pocket a 
schedule of property which he estimated to be worth sixteen 
hundred thousand dollars. He said he would like to read 
to me portions of a will which he had had drawn up. The 
will bequeathed the sum of two hundred and fifty thousand 
dollars to Brown University, to be devoted in some way to 
scientific instruction. But there were other items in the 
will which I felt sure would prevent its getting through 
the Probate Court, and with all frankness I so told my 
friend. But he assured me the will had been so drawn it 
could not be broken. When he died, a wholly different 
will was offered for probate. Instead of two hundred fifty 
thousand, there had been left to Brown University a legacy 
of one hundred thousand dollars. Not all the causes of the 
change were disclosed, but in my own mind I was sure that 
one cause, by no means slight, was the fear, on reflection, 
that the aforesaid objectionable items of the will would 
result in breaking it. But there was a second and well- 
known cause. With the changed purpose a lawyer in 
Boston had been employed to draw up a new will. This 
lawyer, a graduate of Dartmouth College, told Mr. Wilson 
that, two hundred and fifty thousand dollars was too large 
a sum to be given to so small a college as Brown University ; 
that one hundred thousand dollars would suffice, and that he 
would better give fifty thousand to Dartmouth College for a 
Library Building. With the consent of Mr. Wilson's son, 
which the will required should be secured, the legacy was 
devoted to the erection of a Physical Laboratory to be known 
as Wilson Hall. Through a series of maladjustments and 
mistakes of the architect, Wilson Hall had risen no farther 
than its first story when I resigned my place at the Univer- 



PRESIDENCY OF BROWN. 117 

sity. From the facilities which the Laboratory should afford 
in the study of applied science, there were large expectations 
of increased attendance of students. It was a discredit to 
the University, on which I had for years been harping, that, 
as the only institution in a State wholly devoted to manu- 
factures, it offered little or no aid to young men whose 
pursuits were to be outside the learned professions. A long- 
felt necessity of widening its courses of study was now to 
be supplied. The much-talked-of gymnasium was neces- 
sarily deferred. Subscriptions for the requisite funds came 
slowly. Mr. Lyman's bequest completed the needful 
amount, and the building was erected after I left. Dur- 
ing my last Commencement dinner, in a conversation with 
Governor Ladd, who sat by my side, he authorized me to 
announce to the alumni that he would erect for the Univer- 
sity an Astronomical Observatory. This ended my efforts 
to provide the University with its necessary buildings. 

But while we had been earnestly striving for more and 
better accommodations, we had not been idle in striving 
also to increase our teaching force, and to enlarge our 
curriculum. It had become evident to me, soon after com- 
ing to the University, that several new professorships would 
have to be created. One of these was a professorship of 
Modern Languages; another, a professorship of Physiology 
and Hygiene ; a third, a professorship of Geology and 
Paleontology ; and a fourth, a professorship of Astronomy. 
A fifth professorship, that of Botany, was provided for by 
bequest of Mr. Olney, whose name the professorship now 
bears. Political Economy, which had been taught by the 
professor of History, was also made a special department, 
and, with a view to a future professorship, an instructor was 
appointed to teach it. A partial endowment of a chair of 
Natural Theology was slowly accumulating to a point at 



118 EZEKIEL GILMAN ROBINSON. 

which interest enough could be derived from it to pay the 
salary of a professor. But how to provide salaries for the 
new professors was a most difficult problem. I proposed 
that the tuition fees of students should be raised from 
seventy-five to one hundred dollars. 1 A committee had this 
proposition under consideration for a year, and reported on 
it adversely. Meanwhile our invested funds from one source 
and another had been increasing, and I renewed with success 
the proposition to increase the price of tuition. 

With the new professorship of Modern Languages came 
a new interest in the study of the spoken tongues of Europe. 
As elective studies, they perceptibly lessened the numbers 
who elected the classics, particularly the Latin. "With the 
creation of the other professorships, there was throughout 
the College a manifest increase in the number of those who 
selected one or another of the branches of Natural Science. 
It was in the Natural Sciences that the University was most 
conspicuously deficient. But a start was made in the right 
direction, though somewhat to the discomfiture of the older 
members of the Faculty, who strenuously defended the old 
curriculum. 

The progress thus made in buildings and in professorships 
is easily told, and to an outside observer it seemed to be of 
easy accomplishment; but the expenditure of time and 
thought in determining sites, style of architecture, interior 
arrangements, the procuring of necessary funds, the over- 
coming of prejudices, both inside the College and outside, 
so as to have everything move smoothly, formed a burden 
known only to him who had it to bear. The burden was all 
the heavier from the indifference of one or two of the older 

1 Dr. Robinson's annual reports to the Corporation are models of lumi- 
nous and persuasive statement, and show how progressive and how sagacious 
was his policy from the first. — Ed. 



PRESIDENCY OF BROWN. 119 

members of the Corporation. One especially, always most 
obtrusively active in the deliberations of the Corporation, 
was not only indifferent, but opposed to some of the most 
needed improvements. He could not see why the old rooms 
in University Hall should not continue, without change, to 
be occupied by students as they had been in past generations ; 
nor could he see why the middle campus should be made 
sightly to the eye. For neither of these objects did he lift 
a finger or give a penny. It is a matter of grateful remem- 
brance that, when the improvements were completed, every 
one was loud in expressions of approval. 

The introduction of new departments of study and of new 
professors made necessary a readjustment of studies and a 
multiplication of electives. Naturally there was a jostling of 
old hereditary prejudices in behalf of certain studies which 
from time immemorial had taken precedence of all others. 
But science then got a foothold in the curriculum which it is 
never likely to lose. This wider opening of the doors of the 
University to the admission of the sciences pure and applied, 
made possible the rapid expansion and multiplication of 
courses of study which have since been so successfully 
achieved by my large-minded and enthusiastic successor. 

A few years before the close of my connection with the 
University, a further advance was made in our course of 
study, in spite of a very strong opposition on the part of 
certain members of the Faculty. The strength of feeling 
against it, and against myself for proposing it, was a great 
and very unpleasant surprise to me. I had proposed a two 
years' course of study for graduates who were desirous to 
offer themselves as candidates for the degree of Doctor of 
Philosophy ; and I had obtained from the Board of Fellows 
authority to institute such a course. It had been decided 
some years before to discontinue the practice handed down 



120 EZEKIEL GILMAN ROBINSON. 

from time immemorial of conferring the degree of " A.M. " 
in course upon graduates of three years' standing, who 
might choose, on payment of a fee, to apply for it. The 
degree was supposed to be conferred on students who had 
been during the three years engaged in some regular course 
of study ; and in the earlier days, when every student, im- 
mediately after graduation, entered a school of law, theology, 
or medicine, the degree was not unworthily conferred. But 
when men came to apply for it who had been engaged in no 
study, professional or other, the degree was in danger of 
losing all its significance. It was accordingly determined 
that, after a certain date, the degree should no longer be con- 
ferred " in course, " but only after examination on a required 
number of studies. So that, when the time came for confer- 
ring the degree on this new basis, it seemed to me a fit thing 
to add to its requirements such further length and breadth 
of study as should warrant us in offering also the degree of 
Doctor of Philosophy. To this proposal, much to my sur- 
prise, two of the senior professors strenuously objected. 
The senior professor of Latin, an elegant scholar, and a 
deservedly popular teacher, thought the Faculty was already 
doing all that could be expected of them, and ought not to 
be burdened with additional work. The senior professor of 
Greek, along with this objection, also thought the degree 
would be cheapened if conferred on any such course of study 
as we could offer. These grounds of objection seemed to me 
insufficient. Of the other older professors, some approved 
and some stood aloof in apparent indifference. Most of the 
younger members of the Faculty assured me privately and 
confidentially of their entire sympathy with the proposal, 
and their readiness to do anything in their power to carry 
it into effect. The professor of History and Political 
Economy, afterwards my successor in the office of Presi- 



PRESIDENCY OF BROWN. 121 

dent, openly and emphatically avowed his readiness to 
furnish his quota of the requisite instruction. The plan 
was carried into execution, and to the course prescribed for 
the degree of A. M. another was added for the degree of 
Ph. D. The first 1 to receive this last-named degree, after an 
extended and thorough course of reading chiefly in Philos- 
ophy, was subjected to a written examination extending 
through parts of three days, after which he read to the 
Faculty a carefully prepared thesis. It was to me amusing 
that not a criticism nor a question was ventured on the 
thesis ; but it was unanimously voted that the degree should 
be conferred. This closed what had been to me an unpleas- 
ant episode ; but it was a new and important departure for 
Brown University, and has since become, under President 
Andrews, a noteworthy department of university instruction. 
A change was also wrought during my connection with 
the University in the composition and temper of its govern- 
ing Boards. As already intimated, these Boards were 
divided into two strongly marked and often bitterly 
antagonizing parties. The origin and grounds of the 
division were obscure ; but this much was plain : during 
the closing years of the administration of President Way- 
land, a certain member of the Board of Trustees, who had 
been eager to be prominent in the counsels of the governing 
Boards, was obliged to take a back seat. On the retirement 
of Dr. Wayland, he sprang immediately into leadership, 
acquiring and maintaining it by awakening and zealously 
cultivating among Baptists a suspicion that their influence 
was not sufficiently recognized in the administration of the 
government of the University; that they were, in fact, in 
danger of losing their control of it. Diligent efforts were 
made by him to give the impression that another religious 

1 A. K DeBlois, now President of Shurtleff College. — Ed. 



122 EZEKIEL GILMAN KOBINSON. 

body was desirous to acquire the control. By his manipu- 
lation of Baptist votes he succeeded in introducing into the 
Board of Trustees persons whose only recommendation to 
membership was their known hostility to just those members 
whom he charged with seeking to wrest control from the 
Baptists. This action, of course, gave serious offence to the 
persons aimed at. Partisanship thenceforward reigned in 
the governing Boards. 



NOTE A. — BREAK IN THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 

The last contribution to the autobiography was dictated but 
a few weeks before the death of its author. Like General 
Grant, taking up the task in hours of respite from struggle 
with the same formidable disease, unlike the military hero, he 
was not able to carry the story of his life to the period chosen, 
— the end of his presidency at Brown. Other work also 
pressed upon him, and he was prevented even from reading 
over more than a few early passages of the autobiography. 
It stands as he left it. — Ed. 



NOTE B. — CONCERN EOR RELIGIOUS LIEE OE THE COLLEGE. 

A student in Brown from 1872 to 1876 tells something of 
what few but students could know, — the President's deep in- 
terest in the religious life of the College. Dr, Bobinson fre- 
quently came into the general prayer-meeting of the students 
on Wednesday evening. Usually he said a few words, prac- 
tical, simple, and to the point, or led in prayer. He showed 
his interest, and said he came as often as he could. With the 
alumnus whose statement is here closely followed, no memory 
of a special occasion comes up, but the general impression 
abides of "the Doctor's" active concern for the spiritual well- 
being of the students. He did not forget the influence upon 
his own character of a notable religious revival which occurred 
in the College while he was an undergraduate. He meant to 



PRESIDENCY OF BROWN. 123 

add to the autobiography a notice of the part which President 
Wayland took in the revival, for he felt his own indebtedness 
to the fatherly counsel of that great teacher. 

Dr. Robinson's sermons on the Day of Prayer for Colleges 
were better known to the public, and were deeply impressive. 
His daily prayers in chapel were so noteworthy in all that 
makes a prayer the vehicle and the inspiration of devout senti- 
ment as to become a subject of admiring remark even among 
irreligious young men. — Ed. 



NOTE C. — SELF-RESTRAINT AND SENSIBILITY. 

Those chapel exercises also furnish a curious comment upon 
the austerity with which he resented in himself any effusive 
emotion. One of his colleagues noticed that, after a particu- 
larly solemn or tender prayer by the President, Professor L 

was the only member of the Faculty that ventured to walk off 
with him. And yet the reserve in which he wrapped his feel- 
ings was not altogether so native as to most persons it seemed. 
While a young man, he was so easily moved to tears as to 
find this a cause of frequent chagrin, and to set him at per- 
sistent effort to repress all show of the gentler emotions. He 
afterwards remarked that he had perhaps in the end carried 
this self-repression too far. It is certain that he rarely allowed 
in public any expression of pathos which he could repress. 
The peculiar controlled cadence of his voice seemed to mean, 
" I assure you there will be no scene ; " but the real tender- 
ness of his feeling not seldom suffused his eyes, changed the 
quality of his tones, and sent a look almost of pain into the 
grim face, making the involuntary appeal all the more irresist- 
ible from his own evident effort at resistance. This stoical 
reserve he extended to all show of enthusiasm. If betrayed 
into any marked exhibition of energetic emotion during the 
course of a sermon, he would linger in the pulpit, with bowed 
head, reproaching himself, and feeling, as he said, that he 
could never preach again, — as though he had demeaned him- 
self by being so moved and so moving. 



124 EZEKIEL GILMAN ROBINSON. 

The sensibility which so few suspected in him revealed 
itself now and then to the surprise of some one. The Kev. 
T. G-. Jones, D.D. of Norfolk, Virginia, writes : — 

" With all his Puritan sternness, Roman solemnity and dignity, 
there was some softness of spirit and no little sentiment in him. Two 
or three years since, while the writer of these lines was in charge of 
the venerable old church [in Norfolk] of which Dr. Robinson in his 
youth had been pastor, he was surprised in passing up to his study to 
see a tall and very striking figure moving about the premises alone, 
and seemingly inspecting them with the deepest interest. It was Dr. 
Robinson. . . . He had come, after the lapse of half a century, to look 
once more upon the house of God in which he had commenced his 
ministry. . . . After looking about in the lecture-room for a few mo- 
ments, he passed into the main audience-room, and, seating himself, 
long gazed, silent and absorbed, upon the fond, familiar scene unvis- 
ited but once before for half a hundred years. We could not disturb 
him, but withdrew to the study, where at length he joined us, and 
after an hour's delightful talk went on his way to his work on earth 
and to his rest in heaven." 

The Eev. M. F. Johnson, of Middleborough, Massachusetts, 
recalls the following incidents, which are interesting less as 
showing what Dr. Eobinson was than as showing what many 
thought he was : — 

" When we were in Newton, Dr. Robinson gave us a course of lec- 
tures on preaching. One day he mentioned experimental sermons, 
but added, ' You young men cannot preach these yet.' And he stopped. 
As the men looked up to see why, they saw his blue eyes filled with 
tears ; his lips quivered, and he said further, ' When you have stood by 
the open grave of your loved ones, you can preach such sermons to 
the great help of the afflicted.' One student who had spent three 
years in Brown said, ' That is a side of Dr. Robinson I never saw 
before.' It was a revelation to the whole class. I was relating this 
incident to a prominent clergyman, . . . and he expressed surprise, 
saying, ' I did not know he had shed a tear since the days when his 
mother chastised him.' 

"His tenderness and his justice went together. I was once falsely 
accused by a college official. ... He used very severe language, as- 
serting that I was one of those pious devils that preach Sundays and 
break college regulations week days. ... I went to Dr. Robinson 
and told him my trouble. No father could have been kinder to me 



PRESIDENCY OF BROWN. 125 

than he was. He believed my story and comforted me, subdued my 
indignation, and told me he would personally investigate the matter. 
He completely exonerated me, and compelled the official to apologize 
for his accusations. I never forgot that kind act of the Doctor ; and, 
however severe he might seem, I knew that a heart as tender as that 
of a woman governed that inflexible sense of justice which ever char- 
acterized his conduct." 

There can be no doubt that the sorrows which fell so often 
upon his later years softened the asperity of Dr. Eobinson's 
manner, while they never broke his spirit. He was strong, 
though gentler, to the end. The narrator of these incidents 
has properly connected the tenderness which he found in the 
Doctor with a sense of justice. Certain of his old theological 
students could testify that this sense of justice was as rigor- 
ous for them against himself, as his college boys seem to 
have thought it exacting for himself and against them. It 
was his unflinching sense of duty which prevailed in all cases 
alike. — Ed. 



NOTE D. — TRIBUTE BY PROFESSOR HACKETT. 

When Dr. Kobinson resigned at Rochester, Dr. Hackett paid 
the following tribute to his colleague and friend : — 

"... Most deeply do I sympathize with the friends of the Semi- 
nary that we see our President here to-day for the last time in his 
official capacity. I will not disguise it, I feel to-day a pride in recall- 
ing the fact that Dr. Robinson was one of my own early pupils, first 
at Brown University when I too was almost a boy (and that no doubt 
brought us so much the nearer to each other) and afterward at the 
Theological Seminary at Newton. To be able at this moment to look 
up and trace in our sky from that early beginning only an unbroken 
pathway of light, friendship, and kindly offices is to me a delightful 
spectacle. I hope it is also a gratification to him. 

" It has been my lot (for I have led a somewhat vagrant academic 
life) to have been connected with the faculties of two or three differ- 
ent colleges and theological seminaries, and in at least two or three 
different Christian denominations. In these faculties have been some 
of the best scholars in the country ; some of the most devoted, self- 
denying, earnest, as well as able educators in the land. I have known, 



126 EZEKIEL G1LMAN ROBINSON. 

therefore, something of the zeal, self-devotement, enthusiasm of our 
best men in their departments of intellectual and Christian labor. 
But I will allow myself to say, it is but truthful testimony to say, I 
have known no one, on the whole, that, in his devotion to his work, 
his spirit of labor, his enthusiasm, and power to awaken enthusiasm 
in his pupils, has surpassed Dr. Robinson. I do not feel it to be an 
extravagance to apply to him the words which John Foster applied to 
a well-known historic personage ; Dr. Robinson has seemed to me to 
exemplify in the ways that I have indicated an intensity of soul in his 
work, ' kept uniform by the nature of the human mind, forbidding it 
to be more, and, by the character of the individual, forbidding it to 
be less.' We are sorry to have him leave us. We have done all we 
could to retain him. He acts, I am sure, under a rigid sense of duty 
in going from us ; and we, his colleagues, wish for him from the bot- 
tom of our hearts God's benediction and every blessing in his new 
sphere of care and responsibility. He goes to add his name to a long 
line of honored predecessors. He will dwell there amid great memo- 
ries, and feel the inspiration of great examples to incite him to a 
noble emulation. But I am sure of this : there is only one rival of 
whom he need have any fear, and that is — himself." 



THE CLOSING YEARS. 
1889-1894. 



A SUPPLEMENT 

By H. L. WAYLAND, D.D. 



THE CLOSING YEARS. 
1889-1894. 

MARCH 20, 1889, Dr. Robinson laid before the Cor- 
poration of Brown University his resignation. The 
resignation being unconditional, there was no course for 
the Corporation but to accept it. I cannot better express 
the sentiments of the Corporation than by quoting from the 
remarks of his friend and former instructor, Professor 
William Gammell, LL.D. , one of the older members of the 
Corporation, who had been connected with the University in 
various capacities for more than half a century : — 

" I can but recall at this time the honorable and success- 
ful manner in which President Robinson has discharged the 
duties of his office for the seventeen years of his incumbency. 
Any one who enters the college yard will notice the great 
changes and the marked improvements which have been 
made within that time. The grounds, which were plain 
and unadorned, have become a beauty and a delight. The 
number of new buildings and the important changes are 
without precedent in the history of the College. The John 
Carter Brown Library has been erected ; also the Slater 
Dormitory, and Sayles Memorial Hall, the most beautiful 
and most costly building on the grounds. Also this ancient 
building, University Hall, has been renovated and made 
as good as any building connected with the College. The 

Metcalf Estate, of very great value, and a lot on George 

9 



130 EZEKIEL GILMAN ROBINSON. 

Street, of great prospective importance, have been added to 
the college property. 

[It might be added to the above that during his presi- 
dency means had been secured or promised, by gift or 
bequest, for the erection of the Wilson Laboratory, the 
Lyman Gymnasium, and the Ladd Observatory.] 

" The funds of the University, which in 1872 were 
$552,430, were, in 1888, $960,411 [not including the gift of 
Mr. Duncan, $20,000, and a more recent gift of $20,000, 
and other gifts, which would make the total about 
$1,018,000]. The endowment has been very nearly 
doubled [not counting the Lyman bequest, from which 
$60,000 or $70,000 will be realized]. These gifts have 
come very largely from the community in which the College 
is located. 

" For this prosperity we are greatly indebted to the judg- 
ment, the fidelity, the ability, and the diligence of President 
Eobinson. During these seventeen years he has never been 
absent from a college duty, from a recitation, or from a 
chapel exercise, except when called away by public duties. 
This fact indicates at once his vigor of constitution and his 
fidelity to his duties. How few professional men have a 
similar record ! 

" Of his instruction I may speak with confidence, having 
had two sons under his instruction, and it having been my 
duty in various ways to know the internal condition of the 
College. The instruction has been of a very high order. 
He has done much to raise its standard ; he has restored 
largely the spirit of the instruction of my old teacher, Presi- 
dent Wayland, which had waned somewhat during the 
intervening period. I consider this a fair statement of the 
results of Dr. Eobinson's instruction. He is entitled to 
high praise for these services. 



THE CLOSING YEARS. 131 

" He has now left the position at a more advanced age 
than any of his predecessors had attained while in office. I 
cannot say that this step is unwise; it is surely better to 
lay down the office while one is in full intellectual vigor 
than to wait till a failure makes the step necessary. We 
do not, to-day, part with President Robinson ; until we do 
so, we may defer such expressions as will be at that time 
appropriate. " 

After his successor, President E. B. Andrews, D. D. , 
LL.D. , entered upon his duties, Dr. Eobinson spent some 
months in and near Boston, where, at the request of Mr. 
Horatio N. Slater, he sat for his picture to the eminent 
artist, Grnndmann. 

In December Dr. Piobinson came to Philadelphia, where 
he spent the greater part of the two following years. Dr. 
Wayland Hoyt of the Memorial Church having resigned, the 
church recpiested Dr. Eobinson to supply the pulpit until 
they had secured a permanent pastor. Accordingly, he 
began preaching on the last Sunday in 1889, and continued 
until the close of September, 1890, when Dr. T. E. Brown 
entered upon his pastorate. The relations which Dr. Eob- 
inson held during these months to the Memorial Church 
were in all respects exceedingly gratifying. I doubt 
whether at any time his ministerial labors were more pleas- 
ant. His mind was at its best. He did not preach old 
sermons, but kept his powers in exercise by perpetual 
thought, study, and composition ; and in all he said and did 
there was a tenderness and sympathy which his earlier 
days had hardly shown, although undoubtedly always 
existing. The church showed the utmost consideration and 
reverence. After the close of his period of service the 
church placed his portrait beside the portraits of Dr. Henson 
and Dr. Hoyt, and has always delighted in reckoning him 



132 EZEKIEL GILMAN ROBINSON. 

among its pastors. In his " History of the Memorial 
Church," given at its twenty -fifth anniversary, in 1893, 
Deacon Charles H. Harrison said : — 

" The church owes much to the short ministry of Dr. 
Bobinson. His profound and original thought, his search- 
ing and exact analysis, his precise and elegant use of lan- 
guage, his lucid and able expositions of truth, afforded an 
intellectual and spiritual uplift which is not yet forgotten. 
It was an inspiration and joy to sit at the feet of this great 
and good man, whose hoary head and dignified bearing lent 
weight to the words in which he clothed the thoughts and 
experiences of his long and studious life. " 

In April and May, 1890, he gave the Hyde Lectures on 
Foreign Missions, before Andover Theological Seminary, 
on the following topics : — 

1. Christianity Designed and Fitted to be a Universal 
Eeligion. 

2. Christianity provides for its own Extension. 

3. Present Eesources of Christianity amply Sufficient to 
secure its Universal Prevalence. 

4. Manifestations of the Divine in Missionary Epochs 
and Progress. 

5. Significancy and Favorableness of our own Time for 
Missionary Enterprises. 

6. Connection of the Spirit of Missions, Foreign and 
Home, witli Every -day Church Work and Life. 

7. Methods, general and special, in Foreign Mission Work. 

8. Kinds of Men and Modes of Training needed for 
Foreign Missions. 

9. Subtle Hindrances to the Missionary Spirit and 
Enterprise. 

10. Eequisites for Keeping Alive and Active the Mis- 
sionary Spirit in the Christian Ministry. 



THE CLOSING YEARS. 133 

Professor George Harris, D. D. , of the Seminary, kindly 
writes : " These lectures were given extemporaneously, with 
as much clearness, vigor, and interest as the Doctor ever 
showed. It was a delight to see, as well as to hear, a man 
of his age, standing, erect and commanding, to speak to a 
company of young men. During part of the time he was 
my guest, and a guest whom it was a privilege to entertain. 
At the time he was laboring under great anxiety on account 
of the illness of his daughter, who died, I think, soon after. 
But he was cheerful and deeply interested in the various 
subjects of conversation which arose. A kind of intimacy 
sprung up in those few days, as he opened his convictions 
and feeling's. I found that his heart was as large as his 
brain. His sense of humor was charming. He was 
young in his feelings, and, I think, preferred the society 
of younger men to that of men of his own age. I felt 
the greatest admiration and affection for him, and look 
back on his visits and lectures with pleasure. I have been 
reading parts of his Theology, and am much interested 
in finding anticipations of tendencies of thought which 
became decided twenty or thirty years afterwards. The 
independence and breadth of his thinking are manifest on 
every page. " 

In October, 1S90, he gave the same course on " Christian 
Missions " before Rochester Theological Seminary. 

He constantly read with avidity and delight the most 
recent books in theology and philosophy, taking especial 
pleasure in Fairbairn and Bishop Lightfoot. 

During this year clouds gathered about him ; but they 
mellowed, they did not obscure the rays of the sun. On the 
Saturday evening on which he heard of the hopeless illness 
of his only surviving daughter, the last of five, he said to 
me : " It does not seem as if I could bury another child. " 



134 EZEKIEL GILMAN ROBINSON. 

The next morning he preached at the Memorial, upon " The 
Loneliness of Christ ; " to many who heard him the dis- 
course was an era and a revelation. This engagement with 
the Memorial was a great blessing, giving him just the 
intellectual and moral occupation which he needed for the 
completest health. 

In the spring of 1890 he gave a course of lectures at 
Crozer Theological Seminary, upon " Christian Apologetics 
and Evidences," which was in the highest degree appre- 
ciated and prized. He gave a similar course at Crozer 
during the four following years, closing with the spring of 
1894 

Naturally, the Commencement of 1890 at Brown Uni- 
versity was marked by many expressions of regard for the 
ex-President. Touching allusions to him were made by 
many of the speakers. The Alumni poem, by Professor 
Walter Cochrane Bronson, contained the following: — 

" As leader of that host, a stately figure rode, 
With white head bared ; the firm and upright carriage showed 
What power lay yet beneath those sunlit locks of snow ; 
So moved he on, stateliest in that stately show. 
' Who is he ? ' echoed the horseman at my side. 
' Know you not him ? him the old Roman ? him the pride 
Of all these fellow pilgrims ? him whom robes of state 
And sceptre on the elm-crowned hill (resigned but late) 
Became so long and well ? Who — who can e'er forget 
That man in whom the Roman and the Christian met ? 
What though his outward badge of honor be laid down ? 
A king within himself is king without a crown, 
And such an uncrowned king is Robinson to Brown.' " 

At the Commencement dinner the full-length portrait of 

Dr. Eobinson, 1 before alluded to, was presented by Arnold 

Green, LL.D., in a chaste and felicitous address, the entire 

body of alumni rising as the picture was unveiled, and they 

1 A portrait by William Page is in Rochester Theological Seminary. — Ed. 



THE CLOSING YEARS. 135 

saw upon the canvas the striking, familiar features of the 
instructor at whose feet many of them had sat. 

After the Memorial engagement terminated, he preached 
for a few Sundays to the Immanuel Church in Baltimore, 
whose pastor, Rev. A. C. Dixon, D. D. , had just become 
pastor at Brooklyn. A few weeks later, the Fifth Church, 
Philadelphia, bereaved by the untimely death of the beloved 
Dr. Peddie, sought his services. He remained with them 
until the house was closed for the summer. After the 
settlement of Dr. W. T. Chase as pastor of the Fifth, for 
several months Dr. Robinson filled the pulpit of the Broad 
Street Church with his wonted power. In the spring of 
1892 the Baptist National Anniversaries held at Philadel- 
phia were preceded by the Baptist Congress. At one of 
these sessions Dr. Robinson felt that a word needed to be 
said. As his name was announced, and as he appeared 
upon the platform, he was greeted by an outburst of admir- 
ing enthusiasm such as rarely comes to any public man. 

In April, 1892, he gave a course of lectures at Brown 
University, on " Modern Thought and Religion : 1. Science ; 
2. Philosophy ; 3. History ; 4. Literature ; 5. Religion 
and the Bible. " The very conception of this course, upon 
subjects so varied, notwithstanding their common relation 
to one central topic, illustrates the breadth and vigor of his 
mind, and the wealth of his resources. This course was 
afterward given at Crozer, of evenings, while he was lec- 
turing during the day upon " Evidences and Ethics. " 

In the fall of 1892 Dr. Robinson commenced his course 
of instruction in the infant but already gigantic Univer- 
sity of Chicago, as Professor of Ethics and Apologetics. Of 
his relations to the University during these two years 
President Harper says, in his annual report for 1894 : 
" Dr. Robinson brought to us the best work of his life. His 



136 EZEKIEL GILMAN ROBINSON. 

presence during these two years was a constant source of 
inspiration and helpfulness. " 

The world looked with admiration when Sir Walter 
Scott, at the age of fifty-five, began what he called his opus 
magnum, the editing of his entire series of works. He 
achieved it, under the pressure of necessity and misfortune, 
but he fell, conquered, at the age of sixty-one. Eobinson, 
at the age of seventy-seven, assumed the duties of a profes- 
sorship which might well task the largest learning and the 
most vigorous powers. He still maintained his mental 
powers; his body, although it felt the weight of years, 
loyally answered the demands of his mind. The constitu- 
tion which he inherited from his Bristol County ancestors, 
he had never abused or squandered. He lived somewhat 
sparingly ; he exercised with system. He took long walks ; 
and almost 

" To the last he had as light a step 
As any man in Ennerdale." 

Like Francis Wayland, he delighted in his garden and 
in productive labor. During 1852 to 1854, when I was 
a tutor in the then young University of Eochester, he most 
kindly received me, an inexperienced stripling, to terms of 
friendship, and even intimacy. I recall, with pleasure and 
gratitude and sadness, the many Saturday mornings when I 
worked beside him in the garden of his earlier Eochester 
home, until far past noon ; he bearing my horticultural and 
theological ignorance with the patience that is begotten of 
wisdom. He was through life a stranger to every enslaving 
and enervating indulgence. 

February 23, 1894, a beautiful incident irradiated the 
fiftieth anniversary of his wedding. Many of his pupils 
and friends availed themselves of this opportunity to ex- 



THE CLOSING YEARS. 137 

press their affection and gratitude by a handsome pecuniary 
gift ; and the founder of the University of Chicago added an 
annuity to continue through Dr. Kobinson's life. Dr. Robin- 
son wrote to a friend who had taken some part in suggesting 
this action : " Your letter, with its list of names, seemed to 
fill our empty little parlor at once with a roomful of friendly 
faces. We should he glad to thank personally every kind 
friend who has joined you in this most gracious recognition 
of our golden wedding. Perhaps you will convey to them 
our warm sense of their kindness, and thus add another to 
our many obligations. " 

He was invited to give the annual address for the Robin- 
son Rhetorical Society of Rochester Theological Seminary in 
May, 1894. He highly appreciated this invitation, but felt 
that he ought not to add to the engagements which he had 
already made. 

Within the past two or three years disease admonished 
him ; but it was mercifully withheld from inflicting acute 
pain, or dooming him to enforced idleness, which would 
have been a prolonged agony. His disorder was cancer of 
the right kidney, complicated with pleurisy in the left lung. 
His age precluded the thought of an operation. 

He was never more delightful in conversation, never more 
master of his resources, than when he was under my roof, 
in the late spring. 

He preached at Vassar College on the Sunday before 
Commencement, but the prolonged standing was a heavy 
tax. He was able to reach the home of his son in the 
vicinity of Boston, whence, at his earnest desire, he was 
removed to the Boston City Hospital, on June 10. Three 
days later, without a pang, without a struggle, with a sin- 
gle sigh, he ceased from among us. The sun vanished from 
our heavens to rise with unclouded glory upon another 



138 EZEKIEL GILMAN ROBINSON. 

morning. To him we may apply without change the words 
which he uttered at the grave of his teacher and friend, Dr. 
Hackett : " Surely, his was a fit ending to such a life. 
From expounding the words of the Divine Master and his 
Apostles, he was translated almost at once, to speak face to 
face with the Apostles, and with the Master himself. The 
faithful servant, his work well done, has entered into the 
joy of his Lord. " 

Two days later, on Friday the 15th, the funeral took 
place at Eochester, which had been for nineteen years his 
home, and where the great work of his life had been done. 
His friend and pupil, President Strong, was absent in the 
far West, and could not return in time for the service. 
Addresses were made by President Harper of the University 
of Chicago, and President Taylor of Vassar College ; and 
then the hands of a younger generation laid his remains in 
the Mount Hope Cemetery, beside the five daughters who 
had preceded him. On the following Sunday, a memorial 
service was held in the First Church in Providence, where 
for seventeen years he had been a worshipper. Later, at 
the request of the Boston Conference of Baptist Ministers, 
an address was made by H. L. Wayland. An address was 
given at Brown University by T. D. Anderson, D. D. Eev. 
W. H. P. Faunce addressed the Boston Alumni. Addresses 
were made before the Theological Department of the Uni- 
versity of Chicago by H. L. Wayland and Professor George 
W. Northrup, D. D. , LL.D. A commemorative sermon was 
preached in the Memorial Church, Philadelphia, by Dr. T. 
E. Brown. An address was also given before Crozer Theo- 
logical Seminary, and before the Philadelphia Conference of 
Baptist Ministers. These were but a few among the many 
expressions of regard and reverence for the great soul which 
had departed. 






THE CLOSING YEARS. 139 

As I recall my intercourse with him during these past 
forty-two years, it appears to me that the leading feature in 
his character was reverence for truth, allegiance to truth, — 
an allegiance supreme and undivided. The love of truth was 
an instinct, was a passion. No other consideration seemed 
to enter; it was not a matter of question, whether truth 
should rule the hour. I cannot conceive that any motive 
would lead him to deliberate upon any other course than 
the quest of the truth. He did not any more ask, " Shall I 
abide by the truth ?" than a mother asks, " Shall I love my 
child ?" For the attainment of truth no price was too high. 
Hours of midnight toil, studies prosecuted through the dry 
and repulsive pages of mediaeval theology, — all was noth- 
ing, if with it came the attainment of truth. 

As I look back now, it seems possible that this supreme 
regard for truth made him negligent of some of the rhetorical 
arts by which men help to gain acceptance for the truth. 
He had less tact, less of the power of graceful little turns 
by which sympathy is enlisted, friends quickened, enemies 
conciliated, than any public speaker I ever knew. I think 
his idea was that the truth itself was its own sufficient com- 
mendation ; that if anything was true, it ought to be enough 
to set it before people, and that they ought not to expect to 
be won to the reception of it ; and he would have regarded 
any such device as a sacrifice of the dignity of truth. 

Perhaps, also, there was herein a reason why he illustrated 
so sparingly, especially toward the latter part of his life. 
This feature of his style made him so difficult to report by 
any one not an expert. Most speakers give the reporter a 
chance to catch up every now and then, by introducing a 
metaphor, an anecdote, an illustration, for which a catch- 
word is enough, and which can be carried in the memory. 
But he applied the hydraulic compresser for himself : after 



140 EZEKIEL GILMAN ROBINSON. 

he had condensed, there was no show for any one else. I 
imagine that the truth was so clear in his own eyes that he 
did not see any need for its heing illuminated to the minds 
of others ; and then he had within him so much that was 
demanding utterance that he could not waste his time on 
illustrating. But his clearness of thought was such, his 
addresses were so logical, and, not least, he roused those who 
heard him to such intensity of interest and to such attention, 
that he was understood without the aid of illustration. 
People knew when and wherein they differed from him. 
This same feeling toward truth in language actuated him 
in his relations to truth in action. He had not much 
patience with people who saw their duty and did not do it. 
Perhaps this gave rise to what people called his austerity 
of demeanor. Particularly his indignation was aroused by 
pretence or sham, in the pulpit or out of it. But if a man, 
however inexperienced, however young, really wanted to 
know his duty and to do it, to learn the truth and to speak 
it, he would not find in the whole world a kinder, more 
patient friend and counsellor than Dr. Ptobinson. 

His real kindness of heart did not express itself in a uni- 
versal, indiscriminate, diffused, diluted affability, which 
shook hands with equal fervency with everybody, and only 
wished that it were as highly endowed as Briareus, that it 
might shake hands with a hundred people at once ; a friend- 
ship that means as much to one as to another, and nothing 
to anybody. But when there was a call for a kind word or 
a kind deed to one in need or in danger, it was not wanting. 
One Sunday evening there was a great congregation in the 
First Baptist Church in Kochester, gathered by the an- 
nouncement that Dr. Eobinson would preach on " Immor- 
tality. " But somehow, though the audience was there, the 
preacher was not there. I never knew him, in the pulpit, 



THE CLOSING YEARS. 141 

to labor so bard and achieve so little. He seemed to be 
reaching after something which he could not lay hold on. 
As soon as the service was over, he asked me to see Mrs. 
Robinson home, while he darted off, I knew not where. I 
learned, the next day, that just before he went into the 
pulpit he had been informed that one of his students, a 
pious and promising young man, not largely dowered in 
the matter of astuteness, had become entangled in a very 
unsuitable engagement, which would have marred or ruined 
his future. For the hour the man dominated the preacher. 
His anxiety cost him his sermon. Before he slept that 
night, the foolish engagement was at an end ; the young man 
was saved for a useful career, and for the missionary ser- 
vice, in which he subsequently died. To those who knew 
the facts, that pulpit failure did him more honor than the 
most brilliant success would have done. 1 

His mind worked with wonderful intensity, whether he 
was studying or thinking or composing. His habit of 
unwritten speech never led him into slovenliness ; rather, 
it called for intense action alike in the first preparation 
of his sermon and in each repetition of it. A sermon 
preached the second or third time passed anew through the 
fire, and came hot from his mind. His mind was never in 
its shirt-sleeves. Perhaps this habitual intensity had much 
to do with keeping his powers up to the highest pitch to 
the very last. He was a standing protest against the say- 
ing of Macaulay : " It may be doubted whether there ever 
existed a human being whose mind was quite as finely 
toned at eighty as at forty. " It was not more than a 
month before the close that I heard him give, in his course 
at Crozer, the lecture which forms, in his " Christian Evi- 
dences," Chapter III. of Part III. on " The Divine Origin 
1 See note on the character of .Dr. Robinson on page 143. — Ed. 



142 EZEKIEL GILMAN ROBINSON. 

of Christianity, as seen in its Self-Eecuperative Power, its 
Power of Self-Development, and the Expansiveness of its 
Spirit. " He spoke, sitting, for an hour and a half. Of 
course there was not the tremendous vigor which marked 
the meridian of life ; but, on the other hand, there was all 
the clearness and sequence, and there was a breadth and 
sympathy which belonged emphatically to the hour. 

It not seldom happens that breadth of intellectual sym- 
pathy is but another name for a want of definite convic- 
tions ; but with him, the more he knew, and the wider 
his outlook, the more clear and definite and positive his 
assurances. In reading the account of the Parliament of 
Eeligions at Chicago, he said, " They do not make enough 
of Christ. " While at Eochester, delivering his course of 
lectures on missions, as he was walking with his friend 
and former pupil, Professor True, the latter said to him : 
" What do you think of the theory that Jesus Christ was, 
like many great men, the product of his times ? " With 
profound emphasis, he said : " The times, the age, could no 
more have produced Jesus Christ than the desert of Sahara 
could have given birth to an overflowing fountain. " To 
him, Christ was the centre of theological truth, not less 
than the centre of Christian devotion. 

NOTE A. 

The writer has spoken somewhat more at large of Dr. Bob- 
inson, in an address given before the Boston Conference of 
Baptist Ministers, before the Theological Department of the 
University of Chicago, before Crozer Theological Seminary, 
and the Baptist Ministers' Conference of Philadelphia ; now 
issued as a booklet by the American Baptist Publication Soci- 
ety under the title, "E. Gr. Eobinson, D.D., L.L.D., by H. 
L.Wayland.— H. L. W. 



THE CLOSING YEARS. 143 

NOTE B. 
ON THE CHARACTER OF DR. ROBINSON. 

The lively and discriminating character sketch which fol- 
lows is from the Memorial Address of Rev. T. D. Anderson, 
D. D., before Brown University : — 

" The moral man is grander than the man of intellect, and the 
moral character of him whom we honor demands a higher admiration 
than his intellectual power. Faults there were ; but the aim was 
high, the motives noble, the heart sincere, — in a word, the man was 
honest. Indeed, it was his honesty which gave prominence to some of 
his faults. ... It is in recognition of this trait that many of his 
associates and acquaintances . . . have come to regard even the words 
which burned and blistered as sparks struck out by friction upon the 
surface rather than as bolts forged in the central fires. ... In this 
exalted moral character a most prominent characteristic was tre- 
mendous power of will. The man's whole countenance betokened a 
dominant, imperious will. The strong forehead, the eye with its 
straightforward, piercing glance, the prominent nose, the firm lips 
with their scissors-like movement, and the full, prominent chin, all 
wei - e indicative of high purpose and concentrated energy. It was 
this will which, to use language he himself might use, collared his 
mind and held it down to the grindstone ; it was this that demanded 
a hard day's work every day ; it was this that held the passions and 
appetites of the man subservient to moral law, and made the man 
bow in unaffected humility before the ideal of excellence which shines 
in the face of Jesus Christ. 

" But this mighty energy was associated with a stern sense of 
moral obligation. This will was not prostituted to low ends. It was 
not self-will. It recognized a law to be obeyed, and it held the man 
in its grip until he rendered obedience. As in the tremendous energy 
of will we discover the centrifugal force, so in the high moral ideal 
we discover the centripetal force which determined the orbit of his 
life. The same will which showed its mastership in commanding all 
the faculties of the soul, manifested its true temper in its loyal sub- 
mission to the moral ideal presented in the character of Jesus Christ. 
Dr. Robinson honored Christ. He found in him the most complete 
objective transcript of the nature of the eternal God ; and to follow 
His teaching and to be swayed by His spirit was the deepest pur- 
pose of his heart. To be sure, it is what we may call the more mas- 



144 EZEKIEL GILMAN ROBINSON. 

culine virtues of Christ that he honored the most and was most 
successful in imitating. Reacting from a sentimental conception of 
Christ, . . . he, in accordance with the bent of his nature, laid the 
greater emphasis on Christ's revelation of the unswerving justice and 
infinite holiness of God. His Christ loved, but that love was a 
moral, holy, transforming love. His Christ was a worthy ideal for .a 
strong, completely developed man. . . . 

" As in the life of Dr. Robinson we discover in striking combina- 
tion tremendous energy of will and high sense of moral obligation, 
we also discover in that life a not unhappy union of pride with humil- 
ity. Probably no human pride is virtue unalloyed. But there is 
a pride which savors more of virtue than of vice. Essential man- 
hood is worthy of respect. . . . The great moral teacher of the ages 
inculcates self-respect as he instructs man to love his neighbor as him- 
self. ... In the philosophic, Christian sense, Dr. Robinson was 
exceeding proud. He had abundant self-respect ; he had but little 
self-conceit. His pride was akin to the awe with which Kant reflected 
upon the moral law within, and differed heaven-wide from that Nar- 
cissus-like vanity which pines away in admiration of its adventitious 
and ephemeral beauty. 

" This pride, however, retained its virtue, and was raised from the 
level of the stoic philosophy to the higher elevation of the Christian 
religion, as it was mated with humility. Humility, with him, was 
not cringing before one's fellows ... it was not an undue depreciation 
of self ; it was, rather, a just appreciation of another and a worthier, 
in comparison with whom self seems but little. Dr. Robinson bared 
his head before the Almighty. He walked humbly before his God. 
Often have we seen him at Commencement stand with academic hat 
upon his head while conferring degrees as president of the college, 
and then, in a moment, uncover his head, and with unaffected humil- 
ity bow before the throne of the heavenly grace. That twofold pic- 
ture was symbolical of his character. . . . His reverent humility was 
most strikingly illustrated in prayer. . . . His prayers were remark- 
able. Characterized by freshness of thought and variety of diction, 
they came forth, morning after morning, fresh as the sunrise, and 
rose as the out- breathings of an adoring soul." . . . 




DR. ROBINSON AT THE AGE OF 39. 



[From a daguerreotype made in Rochester, N. Y., in 1834, itow in the 
possession of H. L. Way land, D.D., Phi/a., Pa.~[ 



JDart £ccon&« 
CRITICAL ESTIMATES. 



I. 

DR. ROBINSON AS A PASTOR. 

By REV. A. J. SAGE, D.D., 
Cincinnati, Ohio. 



I. 

AS A PASTOR. 

HTHE pastoral experience of President Robinson was not 
■*- an episode, an eddy in the current ; it was a necessary 
part of his career, contributing volume, direction, and force 
to the entire movement. Without it he could not have 
exerted the powerful moulding influence on young students 
for the ministry which was the crowning glory of his life. 
Had he not himself been a pastoral preacher and leader of 
a church, he might have been an acute theological teacher, 
a stimulating intellectual force, but it is difficult to imagine 
him as inspiring scores of young men with intense enthu- 
siasm for the work of the pulpit and the pastorate. A large 
part of his power in the theological seminary was acquired 
in his pulpit in Cincinnati. 

Perhaps this last expression should be pluralized ; for Mr. 
Robinson, not yet adorned with an honorary title, held, 
during five years or more, two pastorates in that city. 
While he was a professor in the Theological Institute in 
Covington, Kentucky, a church was organized, just across 
the Ohio River, in what is now the solid business portion 
of Cincinnati. The exercises at the organization of this 
church were held in the hall of the Cincinnati College, the 
sermon being preached by the Rev. William Hague. It was 
called the Walnut Street Baptist Church, and during its 
entire existence its services were held in College, Melodeon, 



148 EZEKIEL GILMAN ROBINSON. 

and Apollo Halls, all still in existence, and all located 
within a block of one another. The second of these was of 
its kind at that time the most popular place of entertain- 
ment in the city. It was here that Jenny Lind, a few years 
later, gave concerts on her second tour of the country. At 
first Professor Eobinson and Dr. E. E. Pattison alternated 
in the pulpit services. The contrast of styles in their 
preaching was interesting. Dr. Pattison was fervid, prac- 
tical, synthetic in his method; Professor Eobinson was 
calm, theological, analytical. As one of their hearers re- 
marked, " Mr. Eobinson began where Dr. Pattison left 
off. " When, in 18-48, the disruption took place in the 
Seminary at Covington, Professor Eobinson became sole 
pastor of the church, Dr. Pattison being called to a pro- 
fessorship in the Theological Seminary at Newton Centre, 
Massachusetts. It was during this pastorate that a boy of 
eleven years discovered that the easiest way to dispose of the 
weary hour of the service was to listen to the sermon ; and 
with Mr. Eobinson 's clear discourse and simple language 
this soon became an agreeable exercise. His delivery at 
this time was characterized by subdued strength, having 
something of the quiet tone of the lecture-room. 

At the end of one year, in 1849, Mr. Eobinson was called 
to the pastorate of the Ninth Street Church, whose pulpit 
had been vacated by the resignation of the Eev. E. L. 
Magoon. The' Walnut Street Church was disbanded, and 
its membership was merged in that of the Ninth Street 
Church, thus making the second pastorate virtually a con- 
tinuation of the first, on an enlarged scale. The Ninth 
Street Church was at that time recognized as the leading 
Baptist Church in Ohio. Its pastors had been men of 
eminence, Dr. S. W. Lynd and Mr. Magoon, both preachers 
of highly attractive qualities. Cincinnati was called the 



AS A PASTOR, 149 

Queen of the West. It had a pre-eminence which it has 
since lost through the rapid expansion of the great West 
and the growth of the cities of Chicago and St. Louis. 
It had literary men of high reputation and preachers of dis- 
tinction. Considerable anxiety was felt as to the manner 
in which Mr. Robinson's ministry would be received, since 
his mode of preaching was so different from that of his 
predecessors. It was feared that his thoughtful, philo- 
sophical method might not be appreciated by a congregation 
which had been accustomed to highly popular preaching. 
It was not long, however, before this anxiety was 
thoroughly dispelled. The tall and vigorous form of the 
young pastor, just entering into the prime of manhood, his 
large and impressive features, his energetic manner, and 
especially his profound and commanding thought, expressed 
in the tersest and simplest diction, soon won for him the 
respect and the earnest attention of all his hearers. 

The circumstances were such as to call out the ablest 
capabilities of the preacher. Solid men were in the pews, 
such as John Stevens, twice professor at Granville College 
now Denison University, the father of Professor William A. 
Stevens of Rochester Theological Seminary, and others, prom- 
inent citizens in their day, though now forgotten. One 
name, still remembered and honored, was that of the vener- 
able Judge Taft, beside whom sat his son, Alphonso, a 
young lawyer, with a massive, intellectual head, destined 
to be a member of President Grant's cabinet, and Minister 
Plenipotentiary to two foreign courts. Charles Anderson, 
one of Cincinnati's brilliant lawyers, afterward Governor 
of Ohio, and Charles McMicken, founder of the Univer- 
sity of Cincinnati, were frequent attendants on Mr. Robin- 
son's ministry. Probably no one ever heard from him an 
expression which indicated that he was eager to acquire a 



150 EZEKIEL GILMAN ROBINSON". 

wide reputation. Yet if he had such an ambition, this was 
his opportunity. His position was the most conspicuous 
that the West could afford in the Baptist denomination. 
But deeper than such motives, if they spurred him at all, 
was an intense moral earnestness, and what may be called 
an intellectual conscientiousness, which throughout his life- 
time impelled him to bring forward the best products of his 
mind, clothed in the fittest expression of which he was 
master. He felt that he had a congregation fully equal to 
his best abilities, and all his energy of brain and body went 
into his pulpit and his lecture-room. 1 

Accessory to the service were a feature and a character 
which can by no means be passed without ample attention, 
— the finest choir in the city, led by its foremost musician. 

1 An incident which occurred during Mr. Robinson's pastorate illustrates a 
contrast in his character which not infrequently appeared. He seemed bold 
to the verge of recklessness, and yet at times he exhibited a sensitiveness 
amounting almost to timidity. One Sunday morning his attention was 
attracted by a stranger in his congregation of unusually impressive appear- 
ance. As sometimes happened, he was conscious of inadequacy in his prepa- 
ration for the service, and in the broad forehead and dignified bearing of the 
stranger he at once discerned indications of an intellectual nature and a 
probable critic. Certainly this must be an eminent lawyer, or editor, or pro- 
fessor. Mr. Robinson toiled through his discourse, casting uneasy glances at 
the new-comer, and experiencing what ministers sometimes call " a pulpit 
sweat." The close attention paid by his hearer did not in the least relieve his 
anxiety. After the close of the service Mr. Robinson addressed one of his 
deacons : " Did you observe a stranger who sat in such a pew, and do you 
know who he is ? " " Oh, yes ; that 's Mr. , the milkman." — A. J. S. 

Once while preaching in the First Baptist Church of Rochester, the Doctor 
paused, stood speechless for some moments, and began to turn pale, to the no 
small alarm of his hearers, especially of his wife, who suspected what the 
matter was. He had forgotten altogether what came next. But with the 
readiness in extricating himself from an awkward situation that never failed 
him, he maintained the appearance of self-possession, and presently began to 
speak. As soon as his tongue was loosed the spell was broken, and the train 
of thought recovered. Afterward he asked whether he had talked wildly, for 
his mind, he said, had been an absolute blank, and he began to talk without 
the least idea of what he was saying. Yet no one perhaps except his wife 
and his friend, Dr. Kendrick, had divined what the trouble was. — Ed. 



AS A PASTOR. 151 

Victor Williams, the chorister, was a Swede, born not far 
from the birthplace of Jenny Lind, with whom, during her 
two visits to Cincinnati, he established a cordial friendship. 
In personal appearance he closely resembled the French Em- 
peror, Napoleon III. , so that while travelling in Europe he 
became the object of much attention, through a suspicion 
that he was that distinguished person travelling incognito. 
Victor — for by that name he was commonly known — left 
at his death, in 1892, the remarkable record of having been 
for fifty years the leader of one church choir, that of Ninth 
Street, and, as he said to the writer of this chapter, having 
never had in it a singers' quarrel. In the slight foreign 
accent, which he never entirely lost, he said, " I hat but 
one rule ; that was — Mint your own pizness. " x 

1 As Victor Williams was in those early days, with his violin, unquestion- 
ably Cincinnati's chief musiciau, no great local concert could successfully get 
on without him. To his latest day he loved to tell how, when the leader of 
Boston's Germania Orchestra became disabled by illness in Cincinnati, he was 
called upon to take his place, and how he successfully conducted the concert. 
It was his custom to organize a chorus and, after a due amount of drilling, to 
announce a performance of oratorio, the " Messiah " or the " Creation." All 
Cincinnati would be present. Cincinnati's choicest singers would be the solo- 
ists. Then Victor was in his glory. When he first took his place as conductor, 
with baton displayed, in response to the thunders of applause he would sud- 
denly wheel upon bis heels, front face to the audience, and perform an aston- 
ishing bow, bringing his body almost to an acute angle with its support, so 
that had his spinal column been a cannon, it might have fired his head 
through the midst of his audience. Then recovering his first position with 
the same alacrity, the baton would wave majestically on high, and the per- 
formance would begin. — A. J. S. 

Mr. Williams related with great gusto how, when Jenny Lind gave a 
Saturday night concert in Cincinnati, he had with much difficulty persuaded 
his pastor, Mr. Robinson, to appear at a public entertainment just before the 
Lord's Day ; and how, when the great singer had rendered " I know that my 
Redeemer liveth," as she alone could, the pastor clambered over the seats 
and left the concert in precipitation, afraid, although he confessed he did not 
know one tune from another, lest the next number on the programme might 
mar the impression of that heavenly song. The next day it was touchingly 
referred to in the sermon. — Ed. 



152 EZEKIEL GILMAN ROBINSON. 

Mr. Williams kept in constant training a choir of from 
forty to fifty voices, among which was some of the finest 
talent of the city. The expressive solos of the chief singers, 
the grand choruses in rich and stately hymn tunes or in 
majestic anthems, were features of the services expected 
with greatest interest and long remembered. There was 
no organ in the church, but accompaniments were supplied 
by the leader's violin, a 'cello, a double-bass, and occasion- 
ally a flute or other instruments. When, at the death of 
Daniel Webster, Mr. Eobinson delivered an impressive 
memorial sermon, the choir sang a dirge, in which the 
impression was heightened by the muffled tones of a 
gong. 

In his pastoral relations, Mr. Eobinson manifested the 
same fidelity as in all else. He had little of that bonhomie 
which gives to some pastors easy access to the hearts of their 
people. To one of his members he said, " I wish I could 
approach people as some men do, shake hands heartily, and 
say, ' How are you, my brother ? ' But I am naturally frigid 
and distant. I don't want to be so." He did himself 
scant justice in this utterance. A gentleman whom he bap- 
tized still tells how, in Covington, as one of a group of 
children, he was sitting on a stile when Professor Eobin- 
son came along and talked to them so familiarly and 
delightfully that they never forgot it. A gentleman relates 
that as a boy, calling on Mr. Eobinson in his study, he 
received suggestions as to his reading which were of great 
value to him during his entire after life ; and he remembers, 
with deepest interest, conversations with him on personal 
religion. Mr. D. G. A. Davenport, who was clerk of the 
church at that time, says that he had been accustomed to 
call on a pastor who, as soon as his business was finished, 
assumed a manner which suggested that it was time for him 



AS A PASTOR. 153 

to go. Mr. Robinson, on the contrary, in the same circum- 
stances, always kindly detained him for a few moments' 
chat. Years afterward, at Ninth Street, it was remarked 
how old women, poor and perhaps bedridden, recalled with 
fondness the faithful attentions of Pastor Robinson. 

It has been said that he had no sense of humor. The 
truth is that his sense of humor, as in many other men of 
power, was subordinated to other qualities ; but it was not 
wanting. " I met Mr. Robinson in the street to-day, " said 
one of his church-members, " and what do you think he did ? 
He didn't speak or bow to me; he just lifted his forefinger 
and laid it beside that big nose of his in the most comical 
wa y- " A young man called on him to say that a certain 
young lady professed a special interest in religion. The 
pastor, who knew the circumstances, inquired, " Is she 
interested in religion or in you?" The question opened 
the young man's eyes, and he is grateful to this day that 
he was saved from a misalliance. 1 

To one of such a temperament as Mr. Robinson's, the week- 
day meetings were sure to be something of a trial. He had 
not enough of the emotional or the evangelistic in his method 
to give to social religious services an easy and flowing 
movement. The attendance was not always as large, or 
the response as free, as could have been desired. A little 
disheartened at the result of his leadership, one evening he 
was heard to exclaim, " I put real bone work on that ad- 
dress. " At another time, after a long pause early in the 

1 At the dedication of the Theological Seminary at Fairmount, which was 
intended to replace the alienated institution at Covington, and perished after 
a career of four years, Mr. Robinson delivered the address on a platform 
under the trees. He selected Elisha's school of the prophets as the source of 
his theme, and in an amusing manner brought out of the narrative of the 
axe dropped into the pool of water a suggestion of the traditional poverty of 
theological students, based on the fact that the axe was a borrowed one. — 
A. J. S. [See note on page 158. — Ed.] 



154 EZEKIEL GILMAN ROBINSON. 

service, he arose and dismissed the meeting, advising the 
attendants to go home and pray. After that, on similar 
occasions, they were more prompt. A frequent attendant on 
these services was a young man of unusually fine presence, 
with a rich voice, who was destined to be an impressive 
public speaker of wide reputation ; but at this time his part 
was that of a silent auditor. One evening he was startled 
by being unexpectedly called upon to offer prayer. Of 
course he responded, and this was the beginning of the 
public career of H. Thane Miller. In the mid-week ser- 
vices Mr. Eobinson was at his best in expository discourse. 
His lectures on the G-ospel of John were long treasured in 
memory by hearers whose inner life was enriched by them. 

In the third year of his pastorate there was an unusual 
degree of religious interest, as a result of which twenty- one 
persons were baptized. Among the church- members was 
a young man, Joseph Emery, engaged in business, who 
exhibited considerable fervor of spirit and freedom of 
utterance. Under the encouragement of Mr. Eobinson, 
he assumed the position of missionary for the Baptist 
churches of Cincinnati. After several year,s of this service 
he became a missionary for the city at large. The Eev. Mr. 
Emery still continues his work, and has done an amount of 
good in jails, hospitals, etc. , which cannot be estimated. 
He speaks affectionately of the kindness Mr. Eobinson 
showed toward him, and of his faithfulness to the sick 
while the cholera desolated Cincinnati in 1849, when whole 
families were swept away and seven thousand people 
perished. Says the venerable city missionary, " He was 
the friend of the poor. " 

But it was in the pulpit that he made his most memorable 
record. To the work of preaching he devoted all his energy. 
His discourses showed the results of intense and laborious 



AS A PASTOR. 155 

study. He was accustomed to investigate topics rather than 
to elaborate special sermons. Sometimes a labored manner 
in the pulpit indicated a more hurried or less felicitous 
preparation than was usual for him ; but never could he 
fail to impress his hearer that he was drawing from wells 
fed by hidden veins of faithful and profound investigation. 
Said one of his hearers, " He was an omnivorous reader. " 
In his most successful efforts he was an imperial preacher. 
Beginning in a deliberate and quiet manner, never having 
manuscript or even note before him, he expressed himself in 
short and pithy sentences. Erelong some striking utterance, 
remarkable for its thought rather than for any artifice of 
rhetoric, would catch the hearer's attention. His bearing at 
first might seem a little constrained, perhaps almost awk- 
ward. His theme, like all the divisions of the discourse, 
was announced in the clearest and simplest language. Then, 
as his thought became more fluent, he warmed into easier 
action ; his words, never showy or ambitious, came more 
readily; his gestures, fashioned after no school of oratory, 
yet never mechanical, and often strikingly appropriate, be- 
came expressive and energetic, and he carried his audience 
along on a tide of discourse which called their intellects 
into liveliest action, stirred their consciences, and brought 
them into the presence of the grandest realities of eternal 
truth. When his topic called out his best resources, he rose 
at times into a passion of eloquence, his whole form sway- 
ing, his words flowing with torrent-like impetuosity, every 
gesture adding force to his utterance, and the sweep of his 
thought seeming to bear everything before it. According to 
his favorite definition, " Eloquence is thought on fire, " he 
was at times supremely eloquent. A lad who sat in his 
congregation through nearly all his ministry in Cincinnati, 
afterward went East, eager to hear some of the star preachers, 



156 EZEKIEL GILMAN ROBINSON. 

whose praises had so long been familiar to him, — Beecher, 
Storrs, Chapin, and others. To his astonishment, he dis- 
covered that nowhere in the land could he find a preacher 
with power to stir his soul as it had been stirred in the old 
church in Cincinnati. Said the brother of one of America's 
noted literary characters, " I can never think slightingly of 
the Baptist denomination so long as I remember that the 
most magnificent preacher I ever heard was one of her 
ministers, Dr. Eobinson. " 

Of course, such a ministry as this soon filled the pews ; 
not, however, with a miscellaneous throng, — for Mr. Eobin- 
son was never, in the familiar sense, a popular preacher, — 
but with earnest and thoughtful hearers. At one time an 
amusing incident occurred. Attracted by the celebrity of 
the preacher, a Quaker, Mr. Marcus Mote, wished to attend 
one of the services. He was deterred, however, by scruples 
as to the wearing of his hat. He did not wish to attract 
attention by keeping it on his head, and he was not willing 
to remove it. His friend, Mr. William H. Corwin, a son 
of the distinguished Hon. Thomas Corwin, proposed to 
obviate the difficulty. It was done in this wise. Accom- 
panied by Mr. Corwin and Mr. George E. Sage, now Judge 
of the IT. S. District Court of Southern Ohio, Mr. Mote 
walked up the aisle through its entire length, wearing his 
hat. He took his seat in one of the pews of " the saints' 
corner. " After a few moments had elapsed, Mr. Corwin, 
in presence of the entire congregation, solemnly arose, and, 
placing a hand on each side of Mr. Mote's hat, removed it 
from his head and laid it on the window-seat. The con- 
scientious Friend was then able to enjoy the service. 

Mr. Eobinson 's preaching was in the style of a prophet 
rather than of an apostle. His main emphasis was upon 
the law rather than the gospel. To hold up a high, moral 



AS A PASTOR. 157 

standard, revealing the eternal righteousness of God, seemed 
to be his mission. Sometimes he would lean over the pul- 
pit and, in gentle tones of tenderness and persuasion, give 
utterance to the pleading and welcoming spirit of the New 
Testament; but after a few sentences, he would seem to 
recollect himself, and, rising into an erect attitude, he would 
resume his customary more rigorous manner. It was dur- 
ing the last winter of his pastorship that he announced a 
series of special discourses. He was to discuss ten-phases of 
scepticism in twelve or more discourses. They occupied the 
Sabbath evenings of the winter, and were heard by crowded 
houses. In the masterly handling of the topics, the intensity 
of the interest which they excited, the deep impression pro- 
duced, and the tremendous energy of the speaker's oratory, 
they undoubtedly marked the high tide of his career as a 
preacher. These powerful discourses, lifting the audience 
to the heights of thought and of moral feeling, thrilling 
them with impassioned eloquence, and followed in each 
instance by one of Mr. Williams's magnificent anthems, 
left the hearers with remembrances to be treasured for a 
lifetime. Those who heard them repeated in Eochester a 
year later got but a slight suggestion of the power with 
which they came from the orator when fresh from the forge 
of his brain and heart. l 

At last, one Sabbath morning, in 1853, appeared in the 
pulpit the tall form of President Anderson, of the University 

1 The extraordinary impression made in Cincinnati by the discourses on 
scepticism was due in part to the preacher's avowal of a native bent toward 
scepticism. The intelligent inquirer felt that his own difficulties were not 
only candidly but sympathetically weighed. 

It was a characteristic, suspected by only a few intimate friends, of that 
intellectual honesty which every one recognized, that Dr. Robinson not only 
deferred to facts which tend toward scepticism, but gave due weight to those 
which in some minds foster credulity. See Appendix I. : The Case of Ann 
T. Peck. — Ed. 



158 EZEKIEL GILMAN ROBINSON. 

of Rochester. He and Mr. Robinson had been fellow- 
students at Newton Theological Institution. He had 
come to persuade his friend to accept the presidency of 
the Theological Seminary at Rochester. The church raised 
a unanimous protest. Entreaty and argument were used. 
But Mr. Robinson recognized the call to higher duty and 
wider influence ; he resigned his pastorship, and accepted the 
larger career, in which he wrought so wonderful a work. 
The church testified its high regard for him years afterward 
by extending to him an ineffectual call to return to the 
pastorship. 1 

Mr. Robinson had not achieved large evangelistic results; 
but in deep impressions on character, in the quickening and 
intensifying of moral impulses, and in engraving upon many 
minds the profound principles of sacred truth, he did an im- 
mortal work. Many who came into the church during the 
following pastorship referred their religious experience to 
impressions received from Mr. Robinson's preaching. 

NOTE. 

ON DR. ROBINSON'S HUMOR. 

No student of Dr. Robinson could suspect him of lacking 
wit, and his responses on Class Day at Brown showed that he 
had abundant humor too. The Rev. Dr. T. G. Jones, who was 
a student in the University of Virginia at the' time of Dr. 
Robinson's chaplaincy, writes : — 

" We well remember his bringing his bride home during his chap- 
laincy, and the ovation which the students gave them on the occasion, 

1 Forty years after the pastorate in Cincinnati ended, fourteen well-known 
citizens, his old parishioners, signed an address to Dr. Robinson, in which 
they congratulated him on " his new home and new field of labor " at the 
University of Chicago, recalled the " noble characteristics . . . and enduring 
value " of his pastorate, and lovingly expressed the " admiration and pride " 
with which they had followed his career. — En. 






AS A PASTOR. 159 

and the speech they called out from him, in which, alluding to Paul's 
celebrated saying that he who married did well, but that he who mar- 
ried not did better, the young chaplain said that he was perfectly 
satisfied to ' do well,' and was vociferously cheered by the students." 

His old students in theology will find quite in his manner 
the opening paragraphs of an article from his pen on " Migra- 
tions of the Clergy," which appeared in the "Independent" 
for November 21, 1891 : — 

" Few subjects so rich in inviting materials have been neglected by 
the comic papers and the caricaturists as that furnished by the now 
prevalent migrations of the clergy. The words that could be truth- 
fully put into their mouths as they soliloquize in journeying from one 
sect to another would divulge some strange secrets ; and the cajoling 
terms in which a pair of them might exchange salutations as they 
chanced to meet on the way each to the denomination the other had 
forsaken, would be instructive as well as amusing. 

" Nor would there be any sacrilege in such caricature. Grant the 
clergyman all the immunities that can be claimed for the sacredness 
of his office, if he makes himself ridiculous in it he must expect to be 
laughed at and ridiculed. It saves the office from reproach when he 
who by trifling dishonors it, is stigmatized for his trifling." 

In attending one of Dr. Kobinson's lectures on Christian 
Evidences at the Crozer Theological Seminary, Professor 
J. M. Stifler heard a characteristic bit of the Doctor's good- 
humored drollery, which he reports as follows : — 

" One day in review a dull student was struggling to reproduce 
something which Dr. Robinson had given to the class in the lecture 
of the day previous. The student started in on a long sentence, 
but broke down before finishing it. He made a second attempt, but 
with no better success than befoi-e. He tried a third time, and 
brought his sentence to a close, but in such a way that it utterly 

failed to reflect the Doctor's thought, or any thought. ' Mr. ,' 

said the Doctor, ' when a man runs his plane back and forth so often, 
he ought to bring up a shaving.' " 

Many anecdotes of Dr. Robinson used to be afloat in 
Rochester, and generally illustrative of his sardonic and 
sometimes almost surly wit. Professor H. C. Vedder, who 



160 EZEKIEL GILMAN ROBINSON 

was long a resident as well as a student in Kochester ; con- 
tributes the following as a fair specimen : — 

" It is said that on one occasion the elders of a Presbyterian church 
in Rochester (just then without a pastor) waited on Dr. Robinson 
and asked him to preach for them. The church in question is some- 
what 'high,' has rather an elaborate form of service, and its minister 
wears a Geneva gown. The elders were a little nervous about Dr. 
Robinson's views on such matters, and after the invitation to preach for 
them some Sundays had been given and accepted, the spokesman rather 
hesitatingly said : ' I suppose you know, Doctor, that we have a form 
of service in our church to which the people are accustomed ; would 
you have any objection to using that ? ' ' Not at ah,' said the Doctor, 
but a trifle brusquely, as if he did not altogether relish the thing, yet 
knew not how to refuse. ' But,' proceeded the spokesman, still more 
hesitatingly, ' our-er minister-er usually-er wears a gown ; would you- 
er-er have any objection — ' ' No, no,' cut in the Doctor ; ' preach in 
my shirt-sleeves, if you wish me to.' The reply of the elders to this 
is not recorded ; but certain it is that Dr. Robinson preached for this 
congregation some months, and in gown too ; and that this same 
man remarked to him at the close of the engagement, ' Dr. Robinson, 
if you were only a Presbyterian, this church would give you a unani- 
mous call, and would n't take No for an answer.' " 



II. 

DR. ROBINSON AS A THEOLOGIAN. 



By PRESIDENT AUGUSTUS H. STRONG, D.D., LL.D., 

Rochester Theological Seminary. 



II. 

AS A THEOLOGIAN. 

IN attempting a sketch of Dr. Bobinson's theology, I find 
myself unable to dissociate the doctrine from the 
preacher, the administrator, and the man. To my teacher 
and predecessor I owe more than I owe to any one else out- 
side of my own family circle ; and since this indebtedness 
must color all my judgments, it will be best to state 
frankly, at the start, what the debt was ; the reader can 
then make what allowance he chooses for the personal 
equation. 

Some of my earliest impulses to preach were determined 
by Dr. Eobinson's magnificent bearing in the pulpit when, 
as a boy, I listened to him in the early years of his work 
at Bochester. He dealt with great themes, yet he was a 
master of extemporaneous speech. His lucid, intense, and 
thoughtful utterance, exact in expression, yet always sim- 
ply and severely natural, keyed ordinarily to a high 
intellectual pitch, but tremulous at times with emotion, 
revolutionized all my ideas of oratory, and I desired to be a 
minister of the gospel that I might be a public teacher. 
When I left College, and had to choose * place of Seminary 
training, it seemed to me that no one but Dr. Eobinson 
could teach me how to preach. I began my course full of 
literature and history, but with small thought of the 
greater problems of existence. In his class-room I found 
my intellectual awakening. His searching questions, and 



164 EZEKIEL GILMAN ROBINSON. 

the discussions that followed, roused my thinking powers 
as nothing ever had before. It became the pursuit of a 
lifetime to know the truth. 

Of dogmatic instruction in theology, in those years, 
1857^59, there was little. His brief dictations constituted 
not so much a system as a series of suggestions to stimulate 
inquiry. Our teacher appeared to be feeling his way along, 
and his great anxiety seemed to be that each of his pupils 
should feel his own way. Nothing vexed him more than a 
lazy repetition of traditional formulas. He often chal- 
lenged even a correct statement, in order to see whether the 
utterer understood what he w T as saying. Aside from the 
magnetic, inspiring, and transforming influence of his own 
personality, the greatest service he rendered us was that he 
taught us to think for ourselves. 

As a theologian, he was at this time critical rather than 
constructive. He represented the tendencies of Brown and 
Newton, rather than those of Hamilton, from which his 
predecessor, Dr. Maginnis, had come. Dr. Maginnis, our 
teacher of Theology during the first two years of the Sem- 
inary's existence, was a Princeton theologian of the straitest 
sect. But Dr. Robinson at Brown University had been 
under the influence of President Wayland, who was partly 
educated at Andover, and was a great admirer of Professor 
Stuart. At Newton Theological Institution Dr. Robinson 
had been instructed by Dr. Irah Chase and Dr. Barnas Sears. 
Dr. Chase taught a theology so unlike that of Princeton that 
some of our extremely orthodox ministers refused to put 
their sons under what they regarded as heterodox teaching. 
Dr. Sears taught but little positive doctrine of any kind. 
His method was to suggest questions rather than to answer 
them. Scholarship and discussion were the main features 
of his class-room. No one of these teachers of Dr. Robinson 



AS A THEOLOGIAN. 165 

had been strongly conservative. All had been men noted 
for independence as well as for thinking power. 

Dr. Eobinson began his theological teaching in a place 
where the traditions, though brief, were in favor of an old- 
fashioned theology. New England thinking was regarded 
as a sort of free-thinking. Dr. Shedd's realistic interpreta- 
tions of the old orthodoxy were not yet widely known, even 
if they had been published. Princeton still claimed to rep- 
present the immemorial faith of the Church of God. There 
were elements of the Old-School doctrine which Dr. Robin- 
son cherished as his very life. Neither Andover nor New 
Haven ever made a convert of him. He even seems to have 
tried, at the first, to use the traditional formulas of the 
theology of the Covenants. But it is clear to me that he 
felt the arbitrariness and externalism of the Princeton 
system, even though he had not shaken himself wholly 
loose from it. The lectures which he dictated at this time 
are cautious statements of the dominant orthodoxy, with its 
more mechanical features greatly softened clown, and with 
the accompanying suggestion of new points of view which 
logically imply another and a better faith. 

We must remember that he always taught homiletics side 
by side with theology, and that he deeply felt the responsi- 
bility of instructing men who were to repeat his views to 
all the world with an emphasis and exaggeration of their 
own. Therefore he made haste slowly. He was no icono- 
clast. He never intended to break with the old. He 
regarded theological terms as largely metaphorical, and his 
aim was to discover the substance that underlay them. He 
could have subscribed to John Banyan's couplet: — 

" My dark and cloudy words, they do but hold 
The truth, as cabinets encase the gold." 



166 EZEKIEL GILMAN ROBINSON. 

He criticised with great severity the legal fictions of the 
Princeton school, but he had the deepest reverence for the 
reality which they sought so unfortunately to express. In 
fact, I regard the passionate bent toward reality as the cen- 
tral characteristic of his intellectual life. Shows and forms 
he had small sympathy with. He would get at the inner 
being. He censured all theologizing that did not go to the 
heart of the matter. He disdained all conduct that savored 
of pretence. When he spoke, he would say nothing, or he 
would say the truth. The truth, as he at the time conceived 
it, was often biting and galling to those whose views he 
antagonized. But Dr. Eobinson did not spare on that 
account. Like Stein, the great German, he was proud 
toward man, but humble toward God. 

From 1853 to 1872 he was professor of Biblical Theology 
in the Bochester Theological Seminary, and from 1868 to 
1872 he was its President. During all the years of his 
professorship, as well as of his presidency, he was the one 
man who gave name and fame to the institution, and the one 
man who drew to it students and endowments. Drs. Conant 
and Hotchkiss and Northrup and Kendrick and Hackett 
and Bauschenbusch and Buckland were, in those early 
days, most able coadjutors, and their services were very 
great. But it is still true that to Dr. Eobinson the institu- 
tion at Bochester owes more of its character and success 
than to any other single man. The Seminary, which at the 
beginning of his administration in 1853 was absolutely 
destitute of property or endowments, had, in 1872, resources 
amounting to $224, 000. This increase represents an amount 
of personal and skilful work on the part of one man which 
would simply challenge admiration, if it were not so 
pathetic and incongruous an expenditure of energy. That a 
thinker and teacher of such mark should have been com- 



AS A THEOLOGIAN. 167 

pelled to turn aside from his proper work in order to 
solicit rich men's gifts, and to make his own living not by 
his week-day instruction but by his Sunday preaching, is 
pitiful enough. Yet such are the toils and trials that 
have gone to the founding of all our great educational 
institutions. 

The institution prospered, — prospered so much that 
Brown University coveted its President, and at last suc- 
ceeded in drawing him away to another sphere of labor. 
But this prosperity was purchased at a price. Dr. Bobinson 
had not the time nor the strength which he ought to have 
had for the maturing and the publishing of his theological 
system. He was not a ready writer, and systematizing, 
with him, was a slow work. His critical faculty was 
always asserting itself, and was hindering the work of posi- 
tive construction. But before his teaching at Bochester 
ended, his views had to a considerable extent crystallized, 
and he had proceeded a long way in the elaboration of his 
" Christian Theology. " Three hundred and twenty pages of it 
were actually printed. He reached the subject of Begenera- 
tion ; but there the work stopped. His new duties at 
Brown absorbed him, and theology was never taken up 
again. The loose sheets, with the exception of a few which 
fell into the hands of favored friends, have been boxed up 
for these twenty-two years. And so the work remains, like 
Aladdin's palace-hall, with only a window to add, but with 
no one to finish it. 1 

When I began my own work, as Dr. Bobinson 's successor, 
I deeply felt the overmastering influence of his teaching 
I knew that my ways of theological thinking had been 
largely shaped by him. I feared, if I made use of his 

1 Since Dr. Strong's article was written, the *' Christian Theology " of Dr. 
Robinson has been published. — Ed. 



168 EZEKIEL GILMAN ROBINSON. 

recently printed notes, that I should become a copyist. I 
resolved, therefore, to construct my own system de novo, 
without once looking at what my former teacher had written. 
In fact, the pages of his work have only, within a few 
months, been in my hands for careful scrutiny. Two 
things I desire to say with regard to the impressions which 
the reading has made upon me. First, I have a new rever- 
ence for the general weight and correctness of Dr. Robin- 
son's theological- teaching. Here is a noble body of doc- 
trine, grand in its leading conception, wrought out with 
singular originality, and in most of its lines true to Scrip- 
ture. The quarter of a century which has passed since he 
began to print it has brought some new truths into promi- 
nence ; if he could now write it over again, he would, 
doubtless, qualify some of his statements and make others 
clearer ; yet it is still true that the work is even now one 
of great significance, and sure, if published, to attract the 
attention and respect of the theological world. Secondly, 
I am humbled to find how much of my own thinking that I 
thought original has been an unconscious reproduction of 
his own. Words and phrases which I must have heard 
from him in the class-room thirty -five years ago, and which 
have come to be a part of my mental furniture, I now recog- 
nize as not my own but his. And the ruling idea of his 
system, — that stands out as the ruling idea of mine ; I did 
not realize until now that I owed it almost wholly to him. 

Jean Paul says, beautifully, of the obscure teachers of 
village schools, that they fall from notice like the spring- 
blossoms, but they fall that the fruit may be born. Dr. 
Eobinson's self-effacing way of pouring his own mind and 
will into his pupils, rather than of putting himself into 
printed books, has lessened his fame, but it has brought 
forth abundant fruit. Through hundreds of the foremost 



AS A THEOLOGIAN. 169 

men of our Baptist denomination, lie has been preaching 
truth and righteousness for forty years. I wish to be one 
of the first to put the praise where it belongs, and to say 
that the impulse to clear and manly utterance in the pulpit, 
the love of exact statement, the disposition to preach truth 
rather than tradition, which have of late years transformed 
our Baptist pulpit and brought it abreast of our advancing 
age, have been chiefly clue, under God, to the teaching and 
the example of Dr. Kobinson. 

I have said that the passionate bent toward reality was 
the central characteristic of his intellectual life. He 
believed in reality because he believed in God. Yet many 
of his struggles and difficulties originated in a philosophy 
which obscured the testimony of our nature to God's exist- 
ence and attributes. He had been greatly influenced by 
the reading of Kant. Hamilton and Mansel, who repro- 
duced a part of Kant's doctrine, strongly attracted him. 
The relativity of knowledge perpetually discounted the 
things of faith. It is interesting to see how Dr. Eobinson, 
while greatly influenced by this philosophy, made his way, 
notwithstanding, through it, and in spite of it, to essential 
truth both with regard to God and with regard to God's reve- 
lation. He was one of the first in this country to subject 
the common arguments for the existence of God to a careful 
criticism, after the Kantian fashion. Here, as well as else- 
where, he was the sworn foe to over-statement in doctrine, — 
indeed, he preferred to err on the side of doubt rather than 
on the side of dogmatism. Eational minds, he w r ould say, 
cannot observe their own laws of thought in the contempla- 
tion of cosmical phenomena without believing in a primal 
and personal Force, lying behind all, and originating the 
universal whole. The world abounds in adaptations to 
ends ; therefore the world must have been purposed ; or, 



170 EZEKIEL GILMAN ROBINSON. 

in other words, there is a personal Intelligence by whom it 
has been fashioned. Man, with his aspirations and crav- 
ings, can find an ideal only in God, while the moral dis- 
tinctions which man is forced to make give unmistakable 
testimony to the existence of One who is at once man's 
Author and his ultimate Standard of right and wrong. 

Although I do not find anywhere, in Dr. Robinson's chap- 
ter on God's existence, the phrase " immanent finality, " 
I do find such an avoidance of the old " carpenter-phraseology " 
as to suggest that he viewed God's relation to the universe 
as not mechanical but organic. Yet while man, conscious 
of causality, intelligence, and responsibility in himself, is 
reminded, as he looks out into the universe, of a supreme 
and universal Cause, Intelligence, and Judge, no one of all 
the arguments can be said to be a demonstration. " The 
evidence of the Divine existence is not so much logical as 
moral ; it is adjusted rather to the eye of the soul than to 
the logical faculty ; if the eye be darkened, God is not seen 
in any evidence of his being." It is to man's moral con- 
sciousness, then, rather than to argument, that Dr. Eobinson 
would appeal, while he still regards the arguments for God's 
existence as valuable means of stimulating this conscious- 
ness, and of calling attention to the revelations which God 
has made of himself. 

There is a striking similarity between our author's method 
in speaking of Inspiration, and his method in speaking of 
the Existence of God. He treats God's revelation in his 
Word just as he treats God's revelation in nature. As it is 
not the fragments and petty details of the Universe that 
reveal the designing Mind, so in the Bible the argument for 
Inspiration is drawn from the book as a whole rather than 
from its separate parts. To inspire, he would say, was not 
necessarily to educate. The whole early Church was in- 



AS A THEOLOGIAX. 171 

spired, and the office of the Spirit in inspiration was not 
different from that which he performed for many ordinary 
Christians at the time when the New Testament was written. 
Inspiration was consistent with imperfect ideas in the minds 
of the Scripture writers, and the literary, logical, scientific, 
and historical defects which modern investigation has made 
apparent are only indications of a human element which the 
divine pressed into its service, or in spite of which the truth 
was progressively unfolded. The higher criticism had not 
become rife when Dr. Kobinson constructed his system ; but 
the principle and spirit of it, so far as it is theistic and 
reverent, are Dr. Kobinson 's own, and his whole conception 
of inspiration is surprisingly like that which has of late 
become so current. He did not regard the imprecations of 
the Psalms, for example, as inspired by God. Only the 
divine purposes and ideas were inspired, and the impreca- 
tions were but the drapery or the vehicle by which those 
purposes and ideas were necessarily interpreted to early 
times. As David's adultery was not commanded by God, 
yet was made the means of the descent of Christ, so human 
error was sometimes made the means of introducing into the 
world the revelation of the perfect God. 

Yet Dr. Eobinson declares the Christian religion " to be, in 
comparison with all other religions, in an exclusive sense, 
revealed," and its records were "made by men who were 
guided, as no other writers ever were, by an omniscient 
Spirit. " He discards all theories of Inspiration, and 
" declines any attempt to state by what method the Spirit 
must have fulfilled the Divine will in the writing of the 
Scriptures." Each of the Scripture penmen, indeed, 
received and communicated the truth in his own way, and 
with such mingling of the human element with the divine 
that it is impossible to distinguish between the word of 



172 EZEKIEL GILMAN ROBINSOX. 

God and the Scriptures through which that word has come 
to us. " The Bible can be properly understood only as a 
whole, as an organic growth of many centuries, all of which 
are necessary to be taken into account if we would see the 
consistency of its parts, the one with another; and though 
the writings of each age, Mosaic, Prophetic, and Christian, 
are now requisite to the completeness and intelligibility of 
Scripture as a whole, yet to each age its own revelations 
and writings, conjoined with all that had preceded, must 
have been absolutely authoritative, because it was as com- 
plete and explicit a revelation of the divine Mind as then 
was possible. " 

This view of the organic unity of Scripture, and the doc- 
trine that Scripture, only as a whole, represents absolute 
truth, were views not common when Dr. Eobinson began to 
teach. The clear statement of them, indeed, was wrought 
out only toward the close of his theological career. But 
the substance of them had lain long in his mind, and even 
his earliest students can remember the impatience with 
which he regarded the quotation of an isolated verse, as if 
it were a proof -text apart from its context and its historical 
setting. Hence he supplemented all other Biblical argu- 
ments by " the analogy of faith. " For the Bible, as a 
whole, he had profound reverence. Though he did not 
assert that it was inerrant in unimportant matters of his- 
torical and scientific detail, he did believe it to be a com- 
plete and sufficient rule of faith and practice. Yet he did 
not deny that infinite wisdom has provided many helps to 
the study of the Scriptures. History, science, philosophy 
could even be called " collateral sources of theology. " By 
this he meant that physical nature and human nature are 
themselves revelations of God, and that from them we are 
to learn all we can, though the " one direct and controlling 



AS A THEOLOGIAN. 173 

source to which the decisive appeal must always be made is 
the Sacred Scriptures. " 

The attributes of God were defined by Dr. Robinson as 
" our methods of conceiving of him. " Here I think he 
yielded too much to the Kantian and Hamiltonian rela- 
tivity, and made it possible to regard the attributes as 
existing only in our subjective thought. But the further 
development of the subject makes it plain that he did not 
intend to be so interpreted. "Any argumentation," he 
says, " which will show that our conceptions of God can 
only be relatively true to us, and not positively true in 
themselves, will equally avail to overthrow the trustworthi- 
ness of all our knowledge, and can end only in universal 
scepticism. Our conceptions are inadequate, but not, there- 
fore, untrue; they are limited because we are finite, but 
not, therefore, contradictory or false." This is. sound and 
true. How, then, shall we interpret such dicta as the 
following : " The attributes do not represent distinguishable 
properties in the divine essence. ... To suppose that we 
treat of essence when we treat of attributes is to confound 
God with our conceptions of him. " I can answer my own 
question only by saying that Dr. Robinson was hampered 
here by a wrong philosophy. To him, as to Kant, the 
essence was always " the thing in itself, " and could not be 
known. A more modern and more correct philosophy 
admits no such element of inherent and eternal agnosticism. 
Though essence can be known only through attributes, it is 
still true that, in knowing attributes, we know essence. 
Surely God is not concealed by his very manifestation. The 
reason why we cannot perfectly know God is that we cannot 
perfectly know his attributes ; not that knowledge of attri- 
butes does not involve knowledge of essence. We do not 
fully know God's attributes because he has not fully revealed 



174 EZEKIEL GILMAN ROBINSON. 

them, and because we are not great enough to understand 
them. But we do know them in part, and in just so far we 
know God. As in knowing phenomena we know the object, 
so in knowing God's attributes we partially know God him- 
self. Attributes, therefore, should be defined, not as our 
conceptions of God, but rather as those objective character- 
istics of the divine Being which are necessary to the idea of 
God, and which constitute the basis and ground for his vari- 
ous manifestations to his creatures. 

The slightly agnostic element to which I have alluded 
combined with Dr. Robinson's critical faculty to tone clown 
his statements and to make them severely self -restrained. 
All the more strong and convincing were his teachings on 
matters where he had made discoveries or had invented new 
methods. We must give to him the credit for a new classi- 
fication of the divine attributes according to the order of the 
relations that make them known : first, attributes related to 
space and time, as immensity and eternity ; secondly, attri- 
butes related to the material universe, as omnipresence, 
omniscience, and omnipotence ; thirdly, attributes related to 
moral creatures, as holiness, truth, love. But it is especially 
in his recognition of holiness, as the fundamental and 
supreme attribute, that I find his greatest originality and his 
greatest service to the theology of our time. When we 
remember how the New England theology was exalting 
benevolence, or the love of being in general, to the supreme 
place, and, by making holiness a means to an end, was 
denying to it any independent existence in the divine 
nature ; when we remember how even Old School theologians 
defined holiness as the mere aggregate of the divine perfec- 
tions, "and so deprived it of any distinct significance, — we 
can appeciate the originality and the grandeur of Dr. Robin- 
son's view, when he declared that " holiness should be our 



AS A THEOLOGIAN. 175 

fundamental conception, " and that " from it every other 
moral attribute may be synthetized or logically deduced. " 

Our materialistic and easy-going age has drifted even 
farther from the truth than it was a quarter of a century ago. 
Dr. Bob ins on foresaw the consequences to theology and to 
morals of a virtually utilitarian philosophy, and he laid the 
foundation of his system in the ethical being of God. What 
conscience declares to be highest in us must be highest in 
God. " Justice does not exist for certain ends ; it is the 
expression of eternal right ; it is the inexorable demand of 
related moral natures. Accompanying benefits reveal neither 
the grounds of its existence nor the qualities of its nature. " 
Instead of holiness being a form of love, it is far more true 
that love is a form of holiness, " A pure being seeks the 
purity of others, and in so doing shows his mercy. Benevo- 
lence is only a generic and more comprehensive conception 
than mercy." This view of holiness as the fundamental 
attribute of God prepares the way for what was probably the 
most impressive and inspiring part of his teaching ; I mean 
his idea of law as the expression of God's holiness, or the 
transcript of the moral nature of God. No man who sat 
under Dr. Bobinson's instruction can ever forget the scorn 
with which he treated the vulgar notion of law as something 
devised or invented, a makeshift to meet an exigency, an 
arbitrary enactment for the good of the creature, founded in 
mere will, unmade as easily as made, suspended or abrogated 
by fiat even as mere fiat had given it birth. Nor can any 
student of his forget his sublime and perpetual insistence on 
moral law as the eternal and unchangeable expression of the 
nature of God and the relations between God and his crea- 
tures, — an expression so eternal and unchangeable that God 
himself cannot change his law without ceasing to be God. 
By these conceptions of holiness and law Dr. Bobinson 



176 EZEKIEL GILMAN ROBINSON. 

defined his position as an Old-School man, and made it im- 
possible that he should have any other than an Old-School 
view of sin. For, observe that this law, which is itself the 
transcript of the divine holiness, is simply the demand in 
the nature of things that the creature within the limits of its 
own being should be morally like its Creator. Law requires 
conformity to God, therefore, not only in act and in disposi- 
tion, but in the very state and substance of the soul. All 
lack of conformity to God is sin. Guilt is the obligation to 
suffer for such lack, and penalty is the natural reaction of 
the violated law. Is man unlike God in act, disposition, 
or state ? Then, however he came into this condition, he 
is sinful, guilty, punishable. All men by nature, and from 
their first father down, are in this state of sin and guilt and 
punishment, and can be delivered from it, not by any effort 
or merit of their own, but solely by the grace and power of 
God in Jesus Christ. If we were to speak of Dr. Robinson's 
soteriology we might find something to criticise ; but in our 
judgment his doctrine of holiness, law, and sin are worthy 
of all praise. 

I have put these three things — holiness, law, and sin — 
together, although they are ordinarily separated in a theo- 
logical system, and I have put them together in order 
to show conclusively that our author, in spite of peculiar 
views with regard to the method and the application of the 
atonement, cherished such conceptions as logically necessi- 
tated the deity and the propitiatory sacrifice of our Lord 
Jesus Christ. But before describing his opinions on these 
later points, it will be necessary to go back to his view 
of creation, preservation, and providence. Here we have 
another illustration of his refusal to dogmatize Where he re- 
garded Scripture as teaching nothing decisive, and of his 
earnest effort to reach reality beneath the forms of traditional 



AS A THEOLOGIAN. 177 

statement. To his mind it was an open question whether 
the Scriptures teach the absolute origination of matter. The 
Hebrew word bara did not seem to him to settle the ques- 
tion. Yet he recognized in the organic forms of matter the 
embodied thought of a creative Will. " Even spontaneous 
generation does not preclude the idea of such a creative Will, 
working by natural law and secondary causes. Of begin- 
nings of life, physical science knows nothing. Of the 
processes of nature it is competent to speak, and against its 
teachings there is no need that theology should set itself in 
hostility." 

I do not know how much of an attraction the idealistic 
interpretation of the universe had for Dr. Eobinson. The 
mention of secondary causes above, and his declaration in 
another place that space must have existed before the uni- 
verse, would seem to show that he sought no relief from the 
problem of creation in the thought that matter, as ideal, may 
also be eternal. But, in treating of preservation and provi- 
dence, he seems to verge toward the idealistic explanation. 
Though he denies that law is simply uniform divine action, 
he also denies the so-called concursus of God with finite 
causes. Though he declares that " God's relation to the mate- 
rial universe is unknown and unknowable," he also declares 
that " matter and physical force are indissolubly one," that 
" all forces are modes of one force, " and that " this force is 
personal force." "The natural is God's work. He origi- 
nated it. There is no separateness between the natural and 
the supernatural. The natural is supernatural. God works 
in everything. Every end, even though attained by mechan- 
ical means, is as truly God's end as if wrought by miracle. " 
Here the more modern conception of the universe seems to be 
working in Dr. Robinson's mind, and to be coloring his 
thought. His readiness to recognize the working of God 

12 



178 EZEKIEL GILMAN ROBINSON. 

both in nature and in man, and his unreadiness to postulate 
a Deus ex machina where the " Spirit within the wheels " 
would account for all the facts, seem like an unconscious 
anticipation of the thought of God's immanence, which is so 
transforming the theology of our generation. 

The definition of miracle as a " special sign from God, 
authenticating the claim of one of his messengers, " is confess- 
edly intended' to exclude all dogmatizing with regard to the 
relation of the miracle to natural law and to second causes. 
If the signality of the miracle be maintained, then it matters 
not, even if natural law itself be the perpetual working of 
God. Mere outward wonder cannot certify to a divine 
commission, unless the teaching and the life of the worker 
commend themselves to the moral consciousness. The resur- 
rection of our Lord, as a witness to Christianity, depends 
as much on the existence of the Church, as the Church rests 
for its foundation upon the resurrection of our Lord. The 
living Church is the burning bush that is not consumed. 
The church has the word " resurrection " written all over it. 
Its very existence is proof of the resurrection. Twelve men 
could never have founded the Church if Christ had remained 
in the tomb. Dr. Eobinson would defend miracles, then, 
but he would not rest the whole weight of Christianity upon 
them. " No amount of miracle could convince a good man 
of the divine commission of a known bad man ; nor, on the 
other hand, could any degree of miraculous power suffice to 
silence the doubts of an evil-minded man. " " The miracle is 
a. certification only to him who can perceive its significancy. " 

As miracle involves no violation or suspension of natural 
law, so the ordinary providential government of God is con- 
ducted in such a way as to give full range to human freedom. 
Man's will as well as God's will can effect results without 
producing any jar in the system. I could wish that, in his 



AS A THEOLOGIAN. 179 

treatment of the will, Dr. Robinson had more definitely set 
himself against determinism. He seems rather to inti- 
mate that Jonathan Edwards's argument has never been 
satisfactorily answered. The highest conceivable freedom, 
he says, is to act out one's nature. The will is the nature 
in movement. Will is self-determining, indeed; but this 
means, not that the will determines the self, but that the 
self determines the will. Observation and logic lead to 
necessitarianism. We have no consciousness of a power of 
contrary choice, for consciousness testifies only to what 
springs out of the moral nature, not to what the moral nature 
itself is. Yet consciousness testifies, in some sense, to free- 
dom. Single volitions are often directly in the face of the 
current of a man's life. The will cannot be compelled; for, 
unless self-determined, it is no longer will. The conscious- 
ness of freedom must be trusted, even though we cannot rec- 
oncile it with our logic. So Dr. Eobinson does not decide 
the philosophical question, though it is plain that his lean- 
ings are toward determinism. He declares that the will is 
as great a mystery as is the doctrine of the Trinity. As we 
do not know the nature of the human will, so we do not 
know the connection between human volitions and the 
divine will. But we do know, he says, — and this I regard 
as a most valuable and reassuring statement, — we do know 
that " the absolute certainty of events, which is all that 
Omniscience determines with regard to them, is not identi- 
cal with their necessitation. " 

So the doctrine of Providence is connected with the doc- 
trine of Decrees. " To the omniscient Mind, in which there 
is no succession, no events are contingent. Causes, with 
their conditions and effects, are alike and always known as 
indissolubly one. God's knowledge and purposes both be- 
ing eternal, one cannot be conceived as the ground of the 



180 EZEKIEL GILMAN ROBINSON. 

other, nor can either he predicated to the exclusion of the 
other as the cause of things ; but, correlative and eternal, 
they must be co-equal quantities in thought. " It might 
possibly occur to an objector to say that when God knows 
what he will do, his willing is the ground of his knowing, 
instead of his knowing being the ground of his willing. 
This is practically granted in other parts of the system, as, 
for example, where it is suggested that answers to prayer are 
consistent with the immutability of natural law, because 
the immutability of natural law has its only explanation 
and ground in the decrees of God; or where, under the head 
of Calling and Election, he declares that " in becoming 
Christians, men are moved, controlled, and transformed by 
a power of Will superior to their own, and that in transform- 
ing them the divine Will simply executes its eternal pur- 
pose. " He justly prefers the Scriptural doctrine to that of 
the Positivists, who " disdain decree, but consign us to the 
iron necessity of physical forces, " and to that of Pelagians 
or Arminians, whose system is " necessarily one-sided, and 
ministers ruinously to the pride of man. " 

But we must hasten to Dr. Eobinson's anthropology. 
Here he diverged from the traditional view of man's original 
state, by teaching that the image of God in the first man did 
not imply moral perfection, but only the possession of those 
higher powers which distinguish man from the brute. 
" Christ, " he says, " proposes to carry forward human 
nature to a higher point, not simply to restore what was 
lost. " The phrase " very good, " which is used to describe 
man's first condition, "does not imply moral perfection." 
Such perfection cannot be the result of creation, but must 
be attained through discipline and will. Man's original 
state was only one of untried innocence. I have no doubt 
that the old orthodoxy, which Dr. Eobinson was here oppos- 



AS A THEOLOGIAN". 181 

ing, unduly magnified the powers and virtues of the first 
father of our race. When Dr. South declared that" Aristotle 
was but the rubbish of an Adam, " he went far beyond Scrip- 
ture. But it seems to me that Dr. Robinson went to quite 
the opposite extreme when he made the image of God consist 
in mere personality, and denied to the first man any, even a 
germinal, holiness of character. If, when God newly creates 
the soul in Christ, he gives a germinal " righteousness and 
holiness of truth, " then in the original creation he could 
also impart a tendency toward the good and a love for him- 
self. To deny this is to imply the whole Roman Catholic 
doctrine that man, being created destitute of moral char- 
acter attains to holiness and earns God's favor by his own 
obedience. 

There are two reasons, however, why I must decline to 
attribute this Roman Catholic doctrine to Dr. Robinson, and 
must regard him as protesting against an ultra-Protestant 
exaggeration of man's original excellence rather than against 
the substance of the Protestant view. One reason is that he 
grants man's possession, by creation, of " right spontanei- 
ties" or " a constitutional predisposition toward a course of 
right conduct ; " and the other is that, in his own doctrine 
of regeneration, he so freely concedes that the original im- 
pulse and love of righteousness must come from God. So 
he appears to grant to the first man right tendencies, but to 
deny to the first man right character. At the same time, 
I could wish for a stronger affirmation than he has given us 
of man's original moral likeness to God. He describes him 
as " immature and untried at the outset, and consequently, 
at the best, only sinless. " " His civil and social condition 
must have been of the humblest, " he says. " But on the 
other hand, the supposition of an original savage condition, 
but little if any removed from the level of the more intel- 



182 EZEKIEL GILMAN ROBINSON". 

ligent brutes, is a mere conjecture, unsupported by any- 
decisive evidence, besides being wholly contrary to the 
Scriptures. " One may question, however, whether the 
Scriptural argument against man's descent from the brute 
would have seemed to him so conclusive, if this chapter had 
been written a quarter of a century later, when the Dar- 
winian theory is so generally accepted, and when evolution 
is regarded by so many theologians as the method of creation 
pursued by the immanent God. 

It is easy to see that whatever view is taken of man's 
original state must profoundly affect one's view of man's 
fall. Dr. Eobinson did not grant to man at the beginning 
any great height of virtue, even if he could be said to have 
virtue at all. But man was sinless; his state was one of 
innocence ; he was " endowed with free-will ; " he " could 
have resisted temptation and could have moved ever onward 
in normal development. Uninfluenced from without, he 
might, or rather, so far as any analysis of his actions for 
us is possible, he must, have remained an unfallen being. " 
And our author goes on most admirably to say, " How, even 
under temptation, he could have so willed against his nature 
as by volition to have changed the nature itself, is absolutely 
inconceivable. But that he was capable of such volition, 
and by its exercise fell from his original sinlessness, is 
plainly taught in the Scriptures, and the reproaches of the 
individual conscience for personal obliquities, even amid 
the darkness and ruin of the fall, seem to be conclusive 
evidence of the same great fact. " So Dr. Eobinson trans- 
ferred the whole blame of sin from God to man. And not 
only to the first man, but to all men ; for " whatever befell 
the progenitors of the race, their descendants have inherited. 
By the fall there was lost an original righteousness" — here 
I call attention to the fact that our author had not entirely 



AS A THEOLOGIAN. 183 

» 

given up the idea of some positive tendencies to good in our 
first parents — " by the fall there was lost an original right- 
eousness, which, hut for its loss, would have been the birth* 
right of every one of the race, and in its stead there were 
incurred certain positive evils which to every one have 
been a heritage of woe. " 

Dr. Robinson's doctrine of original sin cannot be under- 
stood without remembering that all lack of conformity to 
God is sin, and that no proper distinction can be drawn be- 
tween penalty and consequences. " The distinction between 
penalty and consequences, " he says, " between guilt and 
liability, so much insisted on in modern theology, can be 
maintained only by limiting our knowledge of moral law to 
the mere statutes of the Bible; by restricting human guilt to 
the violation of those statutes, and by so distinguishing 
between Nature and Eevelation as most unwarrantably to 
separate them. But if God be the author of the constitu- 
tion and course of Nature, if the office of the formal revela- 
tion of the Bible be to supplement and to supplant the 
earlier revelation of Nature, then all painful consequences 
of wrong acts must be as distinctly penal as if they had been 
formally threatened. " Thus light is thrown back upon 
holiness, law, and sin : these are regarded as constitutional, 
not as matters of outward expediency or enactment. As all 
men, in consequence of the fall, lack the holiness which 
the law requires, they are sinners ; as this lack is the fault 
of their common humanity, they are guilty; as it brings 
upon them pain and loss, they are under penalty and 
condemnation. 

A definition of sin which covers all the facts of the case 
has always been a great desideratum. To say that sin con- 
sists in sinning is to confine attention to its most superficial 
aspect, while its deadly force is altogether ignored. Dr. 



184 EZEKIEL GILMAN ROBINSON. 

Eobinson has probably given us the most comprehensive and 
exact definition of sin that can be found in theological litera- 
ture, — namely, " As an act, sin is a transgression of God's 
law ; as a principle that determines the guilt of acts, it is 
opposition or hostility to God; as a state or nature, it is 
moral unlikeness to God. " He had no difficulty in conclud- 
ing that the essence of sin, that in it which makes it to be 
sin, is neither sensuousness nor unbelief, but selfishness, or 
an inordinate self-love and self-seeking. " A certain degree 
of self-love is allowable. . . . But all love, to self or others, 
is legitimate only as it is subordinate to, and purified by, 
an intelligent and all-inclusive love to the common Father 
of all. All love becomes sinful, selfish, idolatrous, in pro- 
portion as its object is isolated from God. . . . Unselfish- 
ness is the soul of virtue, and selfishness is the vitalizing 
principle of every vice and of every variety of sin. " Sin, 
then, in a true sense, is itself death, since it is the soul's 
voluntary withdrawal from God, the source of life and 
purity. While Dr. Eobinson did not deny that physical 
death, or the separation of the soul from the body, is a 
consequence of Adam's sin, he held that spiritual death, 
or the separation of the soul from God, is sin's chief 
penalty. With separation of the soul from God, moreover, 
there has ensued a disintegration of man's own spiritual 
being. The real freedom of the will, which consists in the 
harmonious working of all the faculties, has been lost, and 
only that formal freedom which is a necessary condition of 
rational existence now remains. 

As to the common guilt of the human race, Dr. Eobinson 
was a believer in mediate imputation. Since his theology 
dealt primarily with conditions and not with edicts, he 
grounded the condemnation of the race not so much upon 
a common act of the race in Adam, as upon the more pal- 



AS A THEOLOGIAN". 185 

pable fact of universal and congenital depravity. It is only 
through each man's depravity that we can iniputs to him 
guilt. Here, as it seems to me, our author diverged from 
the teaching of Scripture, became inconsistent with him- 
self, and adopted a principle which burdened him greatly 
when he came to explain Christ's taking our penalty upon 
him. Dr. Robinson had granted that the consequences of 
the first sin are to Adam's posterity precisely what they were 
to Adam himself. But to Adam they were certainly first 
guilt, and then depravity. To Adam's descendants, also, 
the consequences of Adam's sin came in the same order. 
Jonathan Edwards saw this when ho said : " The sin of 
the apostasy is not theirs merely because God imputes it 
to them; but it is truly and properly theirs, and on that 
ground God imputes it to them." And Edwards is only 
echoing Paul, who bases God's infliction of the penalty of 
death, not upon the ground that all are sinful, but upon the 
ground that " all sinned. " Since the depravity is caused by 
the apostasy, we cannot be guilty of the depravity without 
first being guilty of the apostasy. 

Dr. Eobinson was a realist, but here, unfortunately, he 
did not consistently arply his realism. He should have 
considered that as Adam's act was condemnable apart from 
its consequences, so we, who were one with him in the 
transgression, have incurred guilt apart from the depravity 
which is a consequence of that act. A failure to recognize 
this leads him to mitigate the judgment which he passes 
upon the depravity itself. He says it is " condemnable and 
punishable, because it is in a sense sinful and guilty," and 
yet he concedes that " the words ' sin ' and 'guilt, ' when ap- 
plied to an inherited nature, must necessarily have a re- 
stricted meaning as compared with that which attaches to them 
when applied to our voluntary actions. In the consequences 



186 EZEKIEL GILMAN ROBINSON. 

of all voluntary wrong acts there is mingled an element of 
remorse, which can never enter into the penal consequences 
of a state or of a nature. " When it is objected, however, 
that inborn depravity cannot be sin, if conscience brings no 
charge of guilt against it, he replies that, however true this 
may be of the nature in its passive state, it is not true when 
the nature is roused to activity. Then the " conscience traces 
guilt to its seat in the inherited nature. " But guilt of 
nature Dr. Eobinson does not explain. How we can be 
rssponsible for what is ours solely through the act of our 
ancestors, he does not tell us. His theology would have 
been more consistent if he had been more thoroughly realis- 
tic and Pauline, and had said plainly, " In Adam's fall we 
sinned all. " It is unjust to hold us guilty of the effect if 
we be not first guilty of the cause. 

But in spite of Dr. Kobinson's unwillingness to press his 
principle to its logical conclusion, there can be no doubt 
that he believed in the organic unity of the race, and in its 
common guilt and punishableness. Even infants are born 
with a nature sinful, depraved, and condemnable, though 
they are in a salvable condition, and if they die in infancy 
they are saved. In their case the evil which has been 
involuntarily incurred is removed by a remedy which is 
provided equally without the volition of the sufferer. 
The explanation given of the method of their salvation is 
significant. " To destroy the germ of evil in the heart of 
an infant, it must, somewhere and somehow, as well as 
children and adults, be brought to a knowledge and love 
of Christ ; in order to this knowledge and love, while as 
yet the evil is undeveloped into habit, Christ needs only 
to be seen; and if Christ, who, while on earth, said, 'Suffer 
little children to come unto me, and forbid them not, for of 
such is the kingdom of heaven,' shall receive the little ones 



AS A THEOLOGIAN. 187 

to himself on their entrance into another life, it certainly is 
neither inconceivable nor improbable that the undeveloped 
evil of their nature should give place at once to an implanted 
and all-controlling love for him whom to know is life 
eternal. " I do not understand Dr. Robinson to be teach- 
ing here that, in the infant, mere knowledge can eradicate 
sin, or that sin can be forgiven without atonement. I 
understand our author to be describing simply the method 
in which, in the case of the infant, the atonement is applied 
and the heart is renewed by the Spirit of God. 

As I have already intimated, Dr. Robinson was a strong 
believer in the absolute deity of our Lord Jesus Christ. 
But he also believed in Christ's complete humanity. His 
conception of the relation between the divine and the human 
elements in Christ is so essential to his system that we 
must endeavor precisely to grasp it. He has the great merit 
of being one of the first in America to unfold the doctrine of 
the Kenosis, or self -limitation of the Logos in becoming 
man. The old orthodoxy had made the person of Christ 
unintelligible and incredible, by maintaining our Lord's 
continual consciousness of his deity, and his continual 
use of divine powers. This was either Docetism, a doctrine 
of merely illusory humanity, or Nestorianism, a doctrine 
virtually of two persons as well as of two natures. Our 
author began his study from the oneness of Christ's person. 
" The personal Logos was not so associated and conjoined 
with a personal Jesus as to produce a kind of double per- 
sonality;" he rather " assumed, by supernatural generation, 
from the Virgin Mary, a true human nature, though not, as 
distinct from himself, a human personality. . . . Christ 
assumed human nature, but he did not assume a human 
person ; and the two natures were so conjoined as to con- 
stitute a single personality." He inveighed against sepa- 



188 EZEKIEL OILMAN ROBINSON. 

rating the two natures, and conceiving that our Lord spoke 
at one time as man and at another time as God. He main- 
tained that this attributed unveracity to Christ, and held 
that our Lord spoke everywhere and always as the God-man, 
even when he declared that he was ignorant of the day of 
the end. I regard this doctrine of the single personality 
of Christ, and of the divine self-limitation in becoming 
man, as one of the noblest and most valuable parts of his 
teaching. 

What human nature did our Lord take ? Our author 
answers rightly : " He took the common nature of the 
race ; not the nature of the unfallen Adam ; nor yet a 
new-created nature, different alike from Adam's and our 
own ; but the nature of those whom he came to save. " 
But our race and nature were sinful ; did Christ, then, 
in taking our nature, take a sinful nature, as Edward 
Irving taught ? This Dr. Eobinson denies. " Sin, " he 
says, "is properly predicable only of personality; the 
hereditary depravity of man is derived by the natural 
descent of personal life from Adam ; Christ did not derive 
a personal human life ex traduce from Adam, but took our 
human nature by a supernatural act, which cut off its 
hereditary guilt, though not the hereditary consequences 
of its guilt. . . . Hereditary depravity was in his case cut 
off from transmission by the supernatural manner of his 
assuming it. . . . No truth is more plainly, continuously, 
and variously taught, than the perfect sinlessness, the 
unapproachable moral perfection, of Jesus Christ; and his 
sinlessness was all the more conspicuous and marvellous 
that it was maintained under the load of a fallen nature and 
in the midst of a sinful race, with whom he had so closely 
identified himself. . . . Notwithstanding the nature he had 
assumed, and the race with which he had allied himself, he 



AS A' THEOLOGIAN. 189 

could preserve his sinlessness, because the basis of his per- 
sonality was his divine nature and not the human. In 
becoming incarnate, he assumed human nature in its 
completeness, and yet so assumed it as completely to con- 
trol it; whereas, in the birth of individual men, human 
nature simply assumes the form of personal life which it 
completely controls. Christ was conscious of the infinite 
purity of his own person because his consciousness was 
grounded in the divine nature which underlay and con- 
ditioned his whole personal being. " 

These extracts from Dr. Robinson's chapter on " The 
Two Natures of Jesus Christ " make it very plain that he 
did not regard our Lord as inheriting either depravity or 
guilt. And yet he inherits the consequence of guilt, — that 
is, penalty. This is our author's doctrine of the atone- 
ment. He insists that the necessity of the atonement is 
grounded in the holiness of God. " God, as holy, neces- 
sarily repels all sinners from his presence, and by the very 
act of repulsion punishes them. Whoever, therefore, should 
assume our nature, and take his place among us as one of 
our race, and take it for the express purpose of redeeming 
us from sin and reconciling us to God, would be under the 
inexorable necessity of so confronting the divine repulsion 
as to remove it, or he could not achieve our redemption. 
. . . He must bear our penalty, and, in bearing, sur- 
vive it. " But in addition to this : " The substitution 
which takes place in the intervention of Christ for the salva- 
tion of men must be of such a nature as to secure an actual 
personal righteousness on the part of the redeemed. " 
Atonement, then, is, on the one hand, as respects God, 
an expiation of guilt, and as respects man, a means of 
reconciliation, renewal, and final salvation. 

In criticising Dr. Shedd's theory that the atonement is 



190 EZEKIEL GILMAN" ROBINSON". 

" an atonement ab intra, a self -oblation on the part of Deity 
himself, by which to satisfy those immanent and eternal 
imperatives of the divine nature, which without it must 
find their satisfaction in the punishment of the transgressor, 
or else be outraged," Dr. Eobinson objects that " an atone- 
ment made necessary to balance the character of God could 
not be a gratuity to men. . . . Literal forensic substitu- 
tion," he says, " involves a contradiction of the idea of 
absolute justice on which the whole theory rests. An 
absolute justice in God, which his mercy could satisfy or 
not, shuts us up to the alternative either of a one-sided 
nature in God, or of an atonement which is stripped of 
every vestige of grace. " He has no patience with the 
representation of an " immutable justice which is so far 
mutable as to accept of a commutation both of persons 
and of punishments. " We are obliged to grant that, to 
make Dr. Shedd's view tenable, another principle of identi- 
fication must be introduced which Dr. Shedd has not men- 
tioned ; only the union of all men with Christ by creation 
can make Christ's substitution consistent with justice. Of 
this principle, which neither Dr. Eobinson nor Dr. Shedd 
has recognized, I shall speak hereafter. I wish now only 
to say that Dr. Eobinson does not seem fully to apprehend 
Dr. Shedd's position in the matter of the relation of the 
divine attributes. The latter's conception of justice does 
not exclude the possibility of grace, since but for grace 
Christ never would have " offered himself through the 
eternal Spirit without blemish unto God. " As Dr. Shedd 
himself has said : " Where then is the mercy of God, in case 
justice is strictly satisfied by a vicarious person ? There is 
mercy in permitting another person to do for the sinner what 
the sinner is bound to do for himself ; and still greater mercy 
in providing that person ; and greater still, in becoming that 
person. " 



AS A THEOLOGIAN. 191 

But let us define more clearly Dr. Robinson's own doc- 
trine. " Christ took our nature with its exposures and 
penal liabilities. He suffered the woes which but for him 
must have come on every member of the race. " These woes 
are not to be conceived of as positive and external inflictions 
by God, but as the natural consequences of his assumption 
of human nature, the laws of nature being the laws of God, 
and all consequences being sanctions and penalties. He 
would have had to suffer what he did, even though no one 
else was saved. So far, we have something like Robertson's 
view, that Christ's sufferings were the necessary result of 
the position in which he had placed himself of conflict or 
collision with the evil that is in the world : he came in 
contact with the whirling wheel and was crushed by it. 
But Dr. Robinson held to a principle which never entered 
into Robertson's theology, — that the whirling wheel was 
not Satan's instrument of torture, but God's enginery of 
justice. " Christ bore his sufferings as the true penal 
sufferings for sin. In bearing them, he triumphed over 
them. To every one who has fellowship with him as a 
sufferer for sin, and faith in him as a personal Saviour from 
its power, it is divinely given to share in his triumphs. He 
exhausted and survived our penal woes ; has so fulfilled the 
moral law and borne all the penalties of the race, that the 
believer finds his obligations fulfilled, his sins and their 
consequences taken away, himself put upon a new career of 
Christian living. Christ becomes our Saviour, not by im- 
putation, but solely through the control which he exercises 
over us when we come to understand him as the one who 
has borne all our woes, and so borne them as to make full 
satisfaction to God, and to impart to all who believe an 
everlasting salvation. " 

The subjective element so predominates here, both in the 



192 EZEKIEL GILMAN ROBINSON. 

pains Christ bears and in the redemption the believer ex- 
periences, that we can easily understand how Dr. Eobinson 
was regarded by many as holding to the Socinian or moral 
influence theory of the atonement. We must remember, 
however, that he continuously and vigorously protested 
against that theory in its assertions that God is primarily 
love rather than holiness, and that law is essentially decre- 
tive or a creation of will ; while he maintained on the 
contrary that it was justice which made the atonement 
necessary, and that the sufferings of Christ were an expiatory 
sacrifice for the sins of the world. I cannot harmonize his 
view of the atonement with his view of the attributes of 
God, except by supposing that here, too, he was dominated 
by his impulse to reality, and that the idea of the immanent 
God was continually asserting itself in his thought. To 
him there was a holiness of God — which the Socinian or 
moral influence theory practically denied ; but to him also 
this holiness of God expressed itself mainly, if not entirely, in 
the order of nature — which the Socinian or moral influence 
theory tried to recognize, though it called God only love. 
This explanation, I am convinced, will commend itself to 
us more fully when we have examined Dr. Eobinson 's views 
of justification and of faith, in both of which the subjective 
element is given what seems an overweening prominence, 
yet in both of which it appears certain that he intended 
to set forth what he regarded as the substance of the old 
objective theology. 

Granting that God's holiness expressed itself in nature, 
however, it is still necessary to ask whether Dr. Eobinson 
succeeded in reconciling Christ's sufferings with the ortho- 
dox premises from which he set out. I must be allowed to 
record my doubts. He fails to show that either law or 
justice has any claim upon Christ. And yet the foundation 



AS A THEOLOGIAN. 193 

of the system is the holiness or justice of God, and the law 
as the necessary and unchangeable expression of God's 
nature. Justice simply renders to all their due, and penalty 
is but the correlative and consequence of guilt. We have 
already seen, however, that our own native depravity is 
visited with penalty although we have not originated it, 
and now we are told that Christ was visited with penalty 
though he had neither depravity nor guilt. If both de- 
pravity and guilt were cut off in his case by his supernatural 
conception, how can he justly suffer? Greg, in his " Creed 
of Christendom, " speaks of " the strangely inconsistent 
doctrine that God is so just that he could not let sin ao 
unpunished, yet so unjust that he could punish it in the 
person of the innocent. It is for orthodox dialectics," he 
continues, " to explain how the divine justice can be im- 
pugned by pardoning the guilty, and yet vindicated by 
punishing the innocent. " I do not see that Dr. Bobinson's 
scheme at all escapes Greg's criticism, or shows any con- 
sistent method of forgiveness. As, in the case of hereditary 
depravity, God's procedure in charging upon us guilt can 
be justified only upon the Scriptural ground that we were 
seminally and organically one with our first father in the 
transgression; so the visiting of the penalties of the race 
upon Christ our Lord can be justified only upon the ground 
that he, too, was heir with us to the same guilt and condem- 
nation, even though depravity was cut off by his immaculate 
conception in the womb of the Virgin. And if any ask how 
thus becoming one of the race can load him with anything 
more than his portion of the common guilt of the fall, I 
answer that he was " the root, " as well as " the offspring, of 
David," and that since all men, as well as all things, were 
created and upheld by him, there naturally and inevitably 

13 



194 EZEKIEL OILMAN ROBINSON. 

rested upon him who was their life the burden and respon- 
sibility of the sins of his members. 

I think the way to such consistent realism as this would 
have been easier if Dr. Robinson had been able to attach 
more importance to the doctrine of an ontologic Trinity. 
That the Son and the Holy Spirit are alike and equally 
God, he gladly acknowledges. He grants also that " the 
terms Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, though derived from 
historical and economic facts, do nevertheless represent 
eternal, ontologic distinctions in the Godhead. " But he 
discards all theories of the relations between them, and 
contents himself with saying that " there is some ontologic 
ground for these names, though we do not know what it is. " 
He rejected the idea of an eternal generation, upon the 
ground that it implied an eternal subordination and de- 
pendence. He laid stress upon the fact that in John's first 
chapter Christ is carefully styled Logos until he becomes 
incarnate, and only then is called Son of God. The general 
tendency of Dr. Eobinson's thought is to confine itself to the 
historical manifestations, and to avoid all attempts to inter- 
pret the ante-mundane mystery of the divine nature. We 
might well follow his example, if we did not seem to 
recognize in Scripture an effort to teach us something with 
regard to the pretemporal relations of the persons of the 
Trinity. Love and counsel are certainly ascribed to them, 
and the term " Logos " indicates derivation as well as union. 
There is a " larger Christ " whom recent theology is coming 
to discover, and this " larger Christ " is enabling us better 
to understand the work of the Christ incarnate. " The 
Lamb slain from before the foundation of the world" 
enables us to see in the sacrifice on Calvary the unfolding 
to human sight of a pain for human sin that had been under- 
gone ever since sin itself began, in fact, ever since the 



AS A THEOLOGIAN. 195 

decree went forth to create a world of which sin was to be 
an incident. Derivation does not necessarily imply begin- 
ning of existence, and subordination does not necessarily 
imply inequality of nature. Only when we regard the 
terms Father, Son, and Holy Ghost as intimations of a rela- 
tion prior to all time, do we know anything of God's 
essential nature. Eevelation is not revelation if it does 
not tell us something of what God is in himself, not simply 
what he is to us. The doctrine of the Trinity assures us 
that there is both eternal Sonship and eternal Fatherhood 
in God. 

For the reason that Dr. Robinson's view of the Trinity 
was by preference the historical and economic, he does not 
discuss the doctrine in its ordinary place immediately after 
his account of the attributes of God, but reserves his treat- 
ment of it until he has considered the doctrine of sin and 
the person of Christ. The method adopted seems to imply 
that the Trinity is not so much the foundation as it is the 
result of the later doctrines of theology.' As his thoughts 
of Christ centred about the manifestation of our Lord in the 
flesh rather than his work and dignity as the preincarnate 
Logos, so the idea of the believer's spiritual union with the 
Eedeemer had no special chapter given to it in Dr. Piobin- 
son's system. He did not believe in what is commonly 
called the mystical union, and he regarded the parable of 
the vine and the branches as an Orientalism. The real 
truth was the influence of Christ upon us. Our union 
with Christ is a union of sympathy, of gratitude, of love. 
The term " union," like the term " substitution," is a figure 
of speech which expresses the result in us of his work 
for us. 

And here, as I have already criticised Dr. Robinson's 
view of the atonement in its relation to God, and have been 



196 EZEKIEL GILMAN ROBINSON. 

unable to find in it any other than a metaphorical execution 
of the justice which the atonement is supposed to satisfy, 
so nOw, when I come to consider his view of the atonement 
in its relation to man, I am unable to find in it any other 
than a metaphorical bearing of the penalty of human sin on 
the part of Christ, or any other than a metaphorical redemp- 
tion of those who put their trust in him. " The only sense 
in which one's sins are laid on Christ," he says, " is that 
one comes into such relations to Christ that he is saved by 
him. . . . There is no transfer of guilt or penalty," for 
" moral character is not transferable," and " the sense of ill- 
desert cannot be handed over from one to another. . . . 
Christ bears our penalty only in the sense that faith in him 
gives us a sense of peace. " Even this peace is not the 
assurance that, now that Christ has suffered, we have no 
penalty to bear. He does not, by bearing penalty, free us 
from the necessity of bearing it. He rather, by his influence 
upon us, " enables us to bear the penal consequences of our 
sins, and so to bear them, through the saving faith and the 
new affections he awakens within us, that we survive them 
and escape from them as he did. " In this way " penalty 
is so inflicted on the guilty [sinner], in conjunction with his 
Deliverer, as that by its infliction he shall be rescued from 
his sin. " Salvation is " a remedial or redemptive process 
through which the effects of a law violated are overborne 
and finally eradicated by the beneficent working of a new 
law observed. " 

Certainly this seems very much like teaching that the 
sinner, with the simple example and moral influence of 
Christ, accomplishes both his own atonement and his own 
renewal. But since Dr. Eobinson denied that he held either 
the theory of Socinus or of Bushnell, I must believe that in 
his own mind there was some principle of reconciliation 



AS A THEOLOGIAN. 197 

which was consciously or unconsciously working, though it 
was unexpressed. In one of his extemporaneous detached 
observations to his students he once said : " Salvation is the 
putting of a reconstructive principle into man's nature. But 
the subjective change does not come from man, but from God, 
through established methods. " Here is again suggested the 
same possible principle of explanation which has occurred to 
us before. God in Christ is immanent in humanity. If all 
good in man is the work of Christ, then a seemingly subjec- 
tive theory of the atonement may have an objective side or 
aspect. What before appeared to be simply man's work is 
God's work, now that we see all but sin to come from God. 
Unless some such principle be assumed, I find it difficult to 
acquit Dr. Robinson of inconsistency, and impossible to deny 
that the Old School doctrine with which his theology began 
evaporated, as he went on, in the fire of criticism. I am 
unwilling to grant that he was conscious of inconsistency. 
I prefer to say, therefore, that, like Jonathan Edwards, he 
unconsciously admitted to his system ideas which he did not 
himself work out to their logical conclusions. Jonathan 
Edwards intended to be an Old School man, but he uncon- 
sciously laid the foundation of the New School theology. 
Was Dr. Robinson in like manner building better than he 
knew, and preparing the way for a more modern theology ? 

It is evident that a conception of salvation like this neces- 
sitates a new definition of justification. Justification has 
commonly been regarded as a change of attitude in God, not 
a change of moral character in the sinner. God acquits the 
sinner from penalty, and he restores the sinner to his favor, 
not because the sinner has become righteous, but solely 
because he is now joined to Christ by faith. Accompanying 
this justification, indeed, and giving rise to this faith, is 
the regeneration of the soul by Christ's Spirit. But Protes- 



198 EZEKIEL GILMAN ROBINSON. 

tant theologians of all grades have felt it supremely important 
to deny that justification has in it any subjective element, or 
that the beginning of a holy character was included in it, 
lest man should seem to have the credit of his own salvation 
and grace become a matter of debt. In Dr. Eobinson's 
system, however, it was necessary that there should be no 
merely external acts of God, no judicial decisions apart from 
the beings upon whom they terminated. To him justification 
that had in it no element of subjective renewal was a mere 
legal fiction. Hence he made justification include not only 
acquittal and restoration to favor, but the implanting of a 
germ of personal righteousness. He seems at times to 
recognize that he is here introducing into justification an 
unscriptural element, for he sometimes speaks of this last as 
a " concomitant " of justification. But at other times he 
declares boldly that justification includes a moral change by 
which the justified becomes personally just. " Justification 
and righteousness are the same thing from different points of 
view. Pardon is not a merely arbitrary declaration of for- 
giveness. Justification is a transformation and a promotion. 
Salvation introduces a new law into our sinful nature which 
annuls the law of sin and destroys its penal and destructive 
consequences. Forgiveness of sins must be in itself a grad- 
ual process. The penal consequences of a man's sins are 
written indelibly on his nature, and remain forever. When 
Christ said, ' Thy sins are forgiven thee, ' it was an objective 
statement of a subjective fact : the person was already in a 
state of living relation to Christ. We are saved only through 
the enforcement of law on every one of us. Justification 
and sanctification are not to be distinguished as chronologi- 
cally and statically different. Sanctification differs from 
justification only in degree, and both imply an agency of 
God in different stages of operation. " Justification then is 



AS A THEOLOGIAN. 199 

not only God's act for man, but also God's act in man. 
Our relation to Christ, which, so far as I can see, is only an 
external relation of gratitude, sympathy, and love, imparts 
to us a new religious life and a personal righteousness, 
which together make up the idea of salvation. 

I wish to be more than just to my old teacher, but all my 
reverence for him cannot blind me to the fact that in thus 
making regeneration a part of justification, and in thus 
making the sinner's acceptance with God depend upon his 
possession of some beginnings of subjective righteousness, 
Dr. Robinson made dangerous concessions to Romanism, and 
paved the way for all manner of sacramental and High Church 
theories of Christianity. I am glad that the doctrine of 
regeneration, which follows that of justification in the 
system, is so markedly able and scriptural. Regeneration, 
he says, is the cause of conversion, and the latter follows 
the former. I interpret him as meaning that there is a log- 
ical, not a chronological, sequence here. In regeneration 
man is passive ; in conversion, active. Man cannot and 
will not regenerate himself, — when he tries, the result is 
either Phariseeism or scepticism. Regeneration is ascribed 
properly to the Holy Spirit ; but we are also " born again by 
the word of God. " The work of the Spirit is not on the 
truth, but on the soul; for the truth cannot be changed, 
while the man can be. Regeneration must first become con- 
version before it can be tested, and the best evidences that 
the change has been wrought by God are found in love for 
Christ, holiness of life, and Christian service. 

There is much in Dr. Robinson's view of faith which 
merits attention and approval. He describes faith, in 
general, as an assent of the understanding combined with a 
consent of the heart. Saving faith is a crediting the divine 
declarations as true, and a confiding trust in Christ as a 



200 EZEKIEL GILMAN ROBINSON. 

personal Eedeemer. He distinguishes saving faith from the 
faith of miracles, which he thinks have ceased, not because 
faith has declined, but because the Holy Spirit has changed 
the method of his manifestations. Saving faith is neither 
mere belief in historical facts, nor that full and all -compre- 
hending confidence which is called assurance. It is called 
saving faith because it has for its end the saving of the soul. 
" It is related to justification as means to end. In dealing 
with the self-righteous Jews, Paul urges simple trust in 
Jesus. But saving is more comprehensive than justifying ; 
and, in dealing with those who love sin, we must urge 
surrender of the will to the holy dominion of Christ. We 
mast not leave out the condition of an amended life. " 
While we must not confound faith with love, or justifica- 
tion with sanctification, and while we preach the doctrine 
of justification by faith without works, we must still make 
it plain that a faith which does not bring forth good works 
will never justify. I am grateful to Dr. Eobinson for this 
recognition of the element of will in saving faith. Faith 
not only sees Christ, but it appropriates him. It not only 
takes Christ, but it gives itself ; and without this element 
of surrender it has no renewing effect. All this is admi- 
rable, and I can only regret that it seems, in connection 
with his doctrine of justification, to intimate that the 
exercise of will in faith, instead of being simply the sur- 
render of an empty soul to Christ as to one who can fill it, 
is itself, somehow, the germ of a personal righteousness or 
the faint beginning of a new obedience of our own, — which 
would be only a more subtle doctrine of salvation by works. 
I wish, moreover, that this thought of the will in faith, as 
not only seeing, but appropriating the personal Saviour, had 
led Dr. Eobinson to the more spiritual conception of that 
union with Christ of which faith is the medium. 



AS A THEOLOGIAN. 201 

In treating of regeneration we have seen that Dr. Robin- 
son regarded the change in the heart of man as wrought by 
the Holy Spirit through the use of truth as a means. He 
regarded this uniform use of truth as shutting out the 
possibility of baptismal regeneration, and as rendering 
infant baptism an absurdity. Infant baptism, indeed, he 
called " a rag of Romanism." In his doctrine of the Church, 
therefore, we find our author a rigorous Baptist. Christ 
himself, however, founded a church only proleptically. In 
Matthew xviii. the word ecclesia is not used technically. 
The organization of the Church was the work of the Apostles 
after Pentecost, although the germ of it existed before. 
The Church was an outgrowth of the Jewish synagogue, 
though its method and economy are different. It is a mis- 
take to regard it as a continuation of the temple with its 
priesthood and its sacrifices. It rather continues the pro- 
phetic office, and represents the progressive as distinguished 
from the conservative element of Judaism. The government 
of the Church is congregational. Three persons may con- 
stitute a church. Councils are only advisory ; they have no 
authority. The diocesan Bishop is anti-Scriptural and anti- 
Christian. 

The Church is organized to proclaim the truth of Christ 
and to induce submission to Christ, not directly to suppress 
vice or to regenerate society. Its aims are primarily reli- 
gious and spiritual, not moral and social, and it has no right 
to abridge individual liberty, or to tell its members what 
they are to eat and drink, what societies they are to join, 
or what marriages to contract. Dr. Robinson regarded bap- 
tism as implying death to sin, resurrection to new life in 
Christ, and entire surrender to the authority of the triune 
God. Since w r e are baptized into the name of the Father 
and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, we enter into the 



202 EZEKIEL GILMAN ROBINSON. 

same relation to the Son that we sustain to the Father, and 
baptism can mean nothing less than the assumption of 
supreme allegiance to Jesus Christ. Baptism is a prerequi- 
site to the Lord's Supper, and no church has the right to 
celebrate the Lord's Supper with unbaptized persons. The 
Lord's Supper is the sacred meal of the individual Christian 
society, and only those who are members of the society have 
rights at the table. Each individual church, moreover, 
must determine for itself what is baptism, and any two 
churches essentially disagreeing as to what baptism is, can- 
not consistently commune with each other. Yet no one can 
more earnestly or constantly than Dr. Eobinson denounce 
the spirit of sectarianism. While Christianity exalts Christ, 
he would say, the sectarian spirit elevates the Church above 
Christ. He frequently used the word " churchism " to des- 
ignate this Pharisaic and divisive tendency. " There is not 
the least shadow of churchism in Christ. Christ did not 
say, ' Blessed is he who accepts the Westminster Confession. ' 
Churchism is a revamped and whitewashed Judaism. It 
keeps up the middle wall of partition which Christ has 
broken down. " 

In giving account of Dr. Eobinson 's views of faith and of 
the Church, I have not the advantage of his printed state- 
ments, and I am dependent upon the notes dictated to the 
last classes of his students in Theology. These notes were 
not revised by him, and it is probable that they do not fully 
represent him. In preparing them for the press, he would 
doubtless have explained and enlarged many points which are 
now very meagrely treated. Yet the notes which I use were 
given after twenty years of study and of teaching, and they 
probably contain the substantial conclusions to which he would 
have subscribed at the close of his service as instructor in 
the Theological Seminary. His teaching on eschatology is 



AS A THEOLOGIAN. 203 

brief, but it is succinct and clear. The main thought of it 
is that the future is not separated from the present by any 
arbitrary line, but that it is the development and outgrowth 
of that which now is. " Eternal life begins here, and the 
second death is but the continuance of spiritual death in 
another and a timeless state of existence. " 

As to the conditions of personal immortality our author 
says, guardedly, in one place : " So far as we know, the 
soul exists only in connection with an organism, and a per- 
sonal being cannot communicate with another except through 
external manifestation or through media. . . . We talk of 
disembodied spirits, but we do not know that there are any 
such in the universe. " Yet he does not deny the possibility 
of bodiless existence in the intermediate state, but says, 
rather : " Man is not dependent for consciousness upon the 
possession of a bodily organization, and therefore will not 
find in the dissolution of the body a cessation of mental or 
spiritual existence. " He believes that there is to be a per- 
sonal coming of Christ, and yet he says that Second Advent- 
ism, probably including in this term the elements of definite 
prediction and of premillennialism that so often mingle 
with it, " stultifies the system and scheme of Christianity." 
He means that to depend for the progress of the Church upon 
Christ's visible and literal return is to discredit the dispen- 
sation and power of the Holy Spirit, which Christ himself 
declared to be better for the Church than his own bodily 
presence would be. 

The doctrine of the resurrection is stated with great ori- 
ginality and suggestiveness. Here personality is the inde- 
structible principle. Both at man's first creation and after 
death, personality takes to itself a material organization. 
It is a divinely empowered second cause. This refutes 
materialism and annihilationism alike. Materialism would 



204 EZEKIEL GILMAN ROBINSON. 

make the soul the product of the body, and with the break- 
ing to pieces of the body the soul would pass into nothing- 
ness. But while science teaches that merely animal life is 
a mechanical process, we cannot explain the facts except by 
supposing that this very animal life is the effect and instru- 
ment of a personal power. This organi'fic power we call the 
soul. The body then reflects the soul. When the process 
of resurrection begins we do not know. It may begin at the 
moment when man becomes a Christian. It may begin at 
the moment of death. However this may be, it is certain 
that there is to be a future resurrection of the body. Yet 
we are not to regard the future body as necessarily contain- 
ing any of the material particles that constitute our present 
physical organisms. The individuality only, the personal 
identity, will be preserved. It is simply a question of 
God's power, and God will give to each a body such as 
shall please him. When a student asked Dr. Robinson at 
this point, " But if Christ arose with identically the same 
body that was laid away in the tomb, how can his resurrec- 
tion be a type of ours ? " he simply answered, " The nature 
of Christ's resurrection body is an open question. " 

The same disposition to regard the beginnings of eternal 
life and eternal death as manifest in this world appears 
in his doctrine of the judgment. " Judgment, " he says, 
" begins here. The searing of conscience in this life is a 
penal infliction. There is no day of judgment or of resur- 
rection all at one time. Judgment is an eternal process. 
Man is being judged every day. Every man honest with 
himself knows where he is going to. " I do not understand 
Dr Robinson here to deny that there is to be a culmination 
of the judicial process at some definite time in the future. 
I understand him only to deny that divine judgment is 
confined to the future, or that the word day is to be taken 



AS A THEOLOGIAN. 205 

in its literal and limited sense. And so with the doctrine 
of heaven and hell. " Heaven is not to be compared to a 
grasshopper on a shingle, floating down stream. . 
Heaven is a place where men are taken up as they are when 
they leave this world, and where they are carried forward. 
There is no intimation of that sudden transformation at the 
hour of dissolution which is commonly supposed. No sin- 
ners can go there, but men may enter there who still possess 
defects [in the sense of incompletenesses] of character " [and 
in the other world these defects or incompletenesses may be 
gradually removed]. If this is all that Dr. Briggs has 
meant by his phrase, " sanctification after death, " we may 
concede its truth and regard him as advocating only what 
Dr. Eobinson had advocated before him. 

The same principles are applied to the doctrine of eternal 
punishment. The actual existence of sin and death in this 
world argues the possibility of the continued existence of 
sin and death hereafter. Punishment begins in this life, 
and is carried on in the next. Dr. Eobinson does not deny 
that there are positive punishments in the world to come, 
though he regards punishment as essentially subjective, the 
reaction of natural law and not the infliction of arbitrary 
will. There does not need to be any whipping-post set up 
in the universe, in order to justify every word of Scripture 
threatening. It is better for us not to conceive of punish- 
ment as objective judicial infliction, but to remember, 
rather, that wherever sin occurs, there, by natural law, 
penalty is inevitable. " We have no right to say that there 
are no other consequences of sin but natural ones," but 
rather to say that " the eternal law of wrong-doing is that 
the wrong-doer is cursed thereby, and that harpies and 
furies follow him into eternity. . . . The fundamental 
argument for eternal punishment is the reproductive power 



206 EZEKIEL GILMAN ROBINSON. 

of evil, the reactionary power of a wrong elective prefer- 
ence, the reduplicating energy of sin. . . . Penalty in the 
divine law enforces itself. We shall never be as complete 
as if we had never sinned. We shall bear the scars of our 
sins forever. " As penalty is not reformatory, and as the 
will may become obdurate in evil, there is no reason why 
the sufferings of the finally impenitent may not be eternal. 
Neither the justice nor the benevolence of God are impugned 
by visiting eternal sin with eternal punishment. 

As I close this account of the theology of a great teacher 
and a great man, I find myself impressed anew with the 
boldness and independence of his views, but also with the 
fact that he represented consciously or unconsciously a great 
movement of human thought, a movement of which the 
Eitschlian School in Germany and the New Theology in 
this country are later types and manifestations. Twenty- 
five years ago Dr. Eobinson probably taught in the Eochester 
Theological Seminary a more modern system than was at that 
time taught in any other evangelical Seminary of any 
denomination whatever. His students can never blame him 
for not being abreast of his time, for he was greatly ahead of 
his time. In his love for reality and his determination to 
rid theology of its ancient incubus of legal fictions, he ren- 
dered invaluable service to every student who came under 
his influence. He had a large and free conception of inspi- 
ration, yet he considered the Scriptures as authoritative, and 
from philosophy to Scripture as a whole, he was accus- 
tomed continually to appeal. The fundamental principles 
of his system with regard to holiness, law, and sin were so 
powerfully taught that even what seem to be his own aber- 
rations from them failed to carry his students with him : the 
nails had been fastened in so sure a place that he himself 
was not afterwards able to pull them out. A philosophy of 



AS A THEOLOGIAN. 207 

relativity involved him in some ambiguities and inconsis- 
tencies. We are obliged to dissent from some of the later 
doctrines of his scheme, or to confess that we cannot imler- 
stand them. But even here it is possible that his views 
may be interpreted in the light of God's immanence in nature 
and in man, and be found to have in them less of paradox 
and more of truth than some of his critics have imagined. 

He was himself a man of tolerant mind, and while he 
claimed the right to think for himself, he granted the same 
right to others. He was a genuine Baptist, in that he be- 
lieved in soul-liberty, and he never thought the true interests 
of the Church of Christ could be subserved by withholding 
from any of its members the right of private judgment. His 
soul was stirred as by the sound of a trumpet whenever it 
was proposed to cast out of our ecclesiastical or Christian 
fellowship those who differed from us only in matters doubt- 
ful or unimportant. And so I give to him, what he freely 
gave to others — the recognition of his loftiness of mind, of 
his sincerity, of his eagerness to know the truth, of his 
bold advocacy of what he believed, even in the face and teeth 
of opposition. He has raised up a generation of thinkers 
and preachers who believe in manliness in the ministry. He 
has left behind him a body of divinity as stimulating and 
suggestive as any that had been written in America since 
Jonathan Edwards's day, and fully worthy to be classed w T ith 
the works of Charles Hodge and of Henry B. Smith. All of 
his opinions are worthy of study, and many of them may yet 
prove the germs of progress in theology. May we who suc- 
ceed him have something of his spirit, follow him where he 
followed Christ, improve upon his teaching where we can, 
do honest and independent work, as he did, in the building 
up of the fair and symmetrical structure of Christian truth ! 
He was one who lived in and for his pupils; he cast his 



208 EZEKIEL GILMAN ROBINSON. 

bread upon the waters, expecting that it would return to 
him only after many days ; he did the sowing, and it has 
been ours to reap the fruit of his labors. God grant that 
we may all attain unto the unity of the faith and of the 
knowledge of the Son of God, and may enter at last, as he 
has done, into the presence of the great Teacher, where he 
who sowed and they who reaped shall rejoice together ! 



III. 

DR. ROBINSON AS A SEER. 



By PROFESSOR G. W. NORTHRUP, D.D., LL.D., 
Divinity School, University of Chicago. 



I 



III. 

AS A SEER. 

[From an address at a memorial service held by the University of 
Chicago, October 3, 1894. 1 ] 

N our denominational institutions at Rochester, in the 
earlier years of their existence, there were four men who 
rank among the most notable in the history of our people in 
this country : Dr. Thomas J. Conant, the first Hebraist of 
his day ; Dr. Asahel C. Kendrick, then well on his way to 
that position which he has long held and still holds among 
those pre-eminent for scholarship in the Language and Liter- 
ature of Greece ; President Martin B. Anderson, the founder 
of the University of Rochester; and the great teacher, 
preacher, and leader, the memory of whose name we are met 
to-day to honor. No more stimulating and fruitful work in 
the way of education has been done in this country than 
was done in those days in the old hotel building on Buffalo 
Street, which contained for some years all the lecture- 
rooms, dormitories, and libraries of the University of 
Rochester and of the Rochester Theological Seminary. 

1 Dr. Northrup was invited to prepare an article for this volume, and 
declined " through misunderstanding of the time to be allowed for it." But 
when his address at the memorial service in Chicago appeared, it was found 
to be not only very just and striking throughout, but also to cover one of the 
most momentous parts of Dr. Robinson's service to his generation ; namely, 
his foresight and provision for future theological development. The remarks 
of Dr. Northrup on this prophetic function are presented as indispensable to 
the understanding of Dr. Robinson's peculiar influence. — Ed. 



212 EZEKIEL GILMAN ROBINSON. 

It is now forty years less one since I first entered the lec- 
ture-room of President Eobinson. Upon the completion of 
my theological course I was honored through his influence 
with an appointment to the Chair of Church History in the 
Eochester Theological Seminary, which position I held for 
ten years, resigning it twenty-seven years ago to enter upon 
what was generally regarded as a premature and precarious 
theological enterprise at Chicago. Through my connection 
with Dr. Eobinson, as a student, in the Faculty, and in 
social relations, — he was a member of my family for 
several months, — I came to know him well, — his powers of 
mind, views, spirit, and methods of work. . . . President 
Eobinson was, in my judgment, the greatest teacher of this 
generation. He was a man of magnificent personality, of 
splendid presence, and powerful mind. He possessed, in 
kind and degree, all the prerequisites, intellectual and 
spiritual, for the most effective work as a teacher, especially 
in the higher ranges of truth, — ■ extraordinary acuteness of 
perception, intense and rapid mental action, largeness of 
vision by which he took in at a glance all the aspects and 
relations of the subject in hand, ability to penetrate as by 
intuition to the heart of the questions discussed, a high 
order of analytic and constructive power, openness of mind 
to new light, a passion for freedom and truth and right- 
eousness, and absolute confidence in their progress and tri- 
umph ; and a mastery of the English language, and of the art 
of effective expression, which enabled him to unfold his 
thoughts in the most luminous and impressive manner. In 
view of the work which he did, and the quality, reach, 
and permanency of the influence which he exerted, we re- 
gard President Eobinson as the foremost man that has ap- 
peared in our denominational history within the past fifty 
years. . . . During the long period of more than forty 



AS A SEER. 213 

years' service as a teacher in the chief schools under our 
denominational control, President Robinson trained a great 
body of young men, hundreds of whom have held and still 
hold positions of power in the ministry, and in other spheres 
of thought and action, who will testify that, as regards their 
ideal of life and their equipment for its realization in labors 
and conflicts and sufferings and aspirations, they owe more 
to him than to any other man — possibly than to all other 
men. It is our conviction — one that we have repeatedly 
expressed — that through the men whom he trained, and by 
his splendid and almost continuous service as preacher and 
lecturer, he did more than any other man of this genera- 
tion in raising the standard of preaching in the denomina- 
tion to which he belonged. 

But there is another fact, and it is one of the chief reasons, 
if not the principal reason, for assigning to Dr. Eobinson 
the position of pre-eminent power and influence which has 
been indicated. He wrought in the line in which the 
Providence of God is causing his kingdom to advance. He 
was one of the greater prophets, a seek of the first order ; 
he saw the coming of, and did more than any other man 
among us to bring in, this movement of religious thought 
in which all share, even those who claim to be ultra- 
orthodox. No man of an observant mind, in looking over 
the history of the past thirty years, can fail to see not only 
marked changes of religious thought, but a growing free- 
dom and independence in theological discussion in all de- 
nominations in this country, — at least at the North. It is 
impossible that theology, which is the apprehension and 
organization of the truths of the Christian revelation, should 
remain the same from age to age. " In the providence of 
God, and in the progress of men, the new wine is ever 
bursting the old bottles. Each age must fight its own 



214 EZEKIEL GILMAN ROBINSON. 

doubts, and lay its own spectres, and formulate its own 
creed. " 

The universe is the self-revelation of the infinite God 
which is one and harmonious, — all parts standing in defi- 
nite and living relations to each other and to the whole. 
Science and philosophy, in the widest sense of these terms, 
are but the thoughts of God as slowly discovered by the 
growing mind of man. The revelation contained in the 
Christian Scriptures is not an afterthought with God, an 
excrescence on the original plan of the universe, but is an 
essential element — in fact, the fundamental, formative idea 
— of that eternal plan of which the universe is an endlessly 
progressive expression. To regard Christianity as standing 
apart from, as unrelated to, the other spheres of God's 
universal self -revelation, is a radical and confusing mis- 
conception. Since all departments of knowledge — science, 
philosophy, and history — are progressive, there is perhaps 
nothing incumbent upon the theologian of more importance 
than to relate theology, so far as possible, to the new learn- 
ing of the age in which he lives. 

The movement of religious thought, to' which we have 
referred, is clue in larger measure to Dr. Eobinson than to 
any other man among us. In one of his latest papers he 
indicated some of the marked changes in religious thought 
and pulpit phraseology that have occurred among evangelical 
Christians within the last thirty years. Among the changes 
specified we note the following : — 

" The first chapters of Genesis are no longer quoted as a 
minute record of scientific or of historical facts, but as an 
Oriental and pictorial way of representing the great truths 
that God is the author of the universe, and that man came 
to his estate of moral disease and death through conscious 
violation of moral law. . . . Very few are now troubled 



AS A SEEK. 215 

about the imprecatory Psalms, recognizing that the office 
of the Holy Spirit was not that of sanctification ; that in 
' moving ' men ' to speak,' whether Abraham, Moses, the 
prophets, or the Apostles, the Spirit used them as it found 
them, teaching them neither science nor philosophy, neither 
history nor logic, neither rhetoric nor grammar. 

" The conceptions of God now most dwelt on are not 
those with which our fathers and grandfathers were made 
most familiar. To them God was presented more under the 
aspect of justice and wrath against ungodliness than under 
that of love. His mercy and forgiveness were won solely 
through the atoning work of Christ. Now the ever-recur- 
ring text is : ' God is love.' The conception of God which 
is coming to be dominant to-day is the Christian conception 
of him, — that conception of him which we get by accepting 
Jesus Christ as the true and full expression jf the mind and 
heart of God, that he and the Father are one in spirit, 
rendering incredible the idea of a moral dualism in the 
Divine Being. 

" Instead of the old doctrine that all things were made 
for the glory of God ; that man by sin had dishonored God, 
and his glory could be secured only through the sacrificial 
death of Christ, we have the doctrine that the universe, 
including man, was simply an irrepressible overflow of 
infinite benevolence ; that the resources of the world are 
subordinated to the welfare of man, to make the utmost 
possible of whom will be the consummation of all Divine 
purposes, creative and redemptive." 

So also in the pulpit portrayals of the doctrines of grace : 
"The incarnation takes precedence of the atonement and 
overshadows it. The humbled Godhead, rather than the 
propitiating sacrifice, is made to appeal to us as a motive to 
repentance. It is to the second of Philippians rather than 



216 EZEKIEL GILMAN ROBINSON. 

to the fifth of Romans that reference is most frequently 
made." 

Not less marked are the changes in the pulpit representa- 
tions of unrenewed human nature : " Depravity is now far 
less than total. Somewhere, amid the ashes of the natural 
human heart, lies a spark that needs only the motives of 
the gospel to fan it into a flame of holy love." 

Theological theories are being discarded more and more ; 
ultra-Biblical speculations — fictions logical, metaphysical, 
and ethical — which have burdened Christian theology for 
centuries, to its infinite injury, are rapidly giving way, and 
interest and emphasis are coming to be placed more and 
more on the great facts of revelation, — the eternal verities 
which constitute the substance of Christianity. 

This movement of religious thought is not an eddy, nor 
a whirlpool, but is due to the action of causes similar to 
those which have operated from time to time all down the 
ages, among which great intellectual and religious personali- 
ties are chief in power, and is destined to continue till it 
shall shake all things that can be shaken, that they may be 
removed, " that the things which cannot be shaken may 
remain." This "shaking and removing" of theological 
dogmas of human invention is one of the most beneficent 
results involved in the progress of theology. Ecclesiastical 
dogmas which have had wide, almost universal, acceptance 
would, if now persisted in, " wreck the faith of the age. " 
For example, such dogmas as the following: 1. That the 
atonement was made to satisfy the just claims of the devil. 
2. That mankind are under a sentence of antenatal con- 
demnation, based on the fiction of imputed guilt, — a 
sentence which, in the judgment of past ages, consigned 
to hell the great majority of infants dying in infancy, — one 
half the human race. 3. That the heathen have light 



AS A SEER. 217 

enough to render their damnation just, but not enough to 
render their salvation possible. 4. That God made no 
provision in the atonement for the salvation of a part — 
apparently a very great part — of mankind. 5. That he arbi- 
trarily elected some men to eternal life and others to eternal 
perdition, — there' being between the individuals appointed 
to these infinitely diverse destinies no difference which even 
omniscience could discover as a reason for discrimination. 
6. That the perdition of a large part of mankind — the non- 
elect — is inevitable, let them do what they can to secure 
eternal life, even in the way appointed in the gospel. 7. 
That God desti nates men to eternal perdition in order to 
show forth his justice in the punishment of sin. 

But we cannot multiply these points. Is it a matter of 
wonder that Christianity, burdened with such a mass of 
ecclesiastical dogmas, should make slow progress in the 
world, compelled to meet not only the powerful evil of the 
human heart, but the blazing hostilities of the human 
reason ? 

And what are the things which cannot be shaken, and 
which are to remain ? Some of them have been indicated in 
the article of Dr. Eobinson, already referred to, and in his 
last sermon published in " The Standard " : 1. The universal 
fatherhood of God. 2. " The universe, including man, an 
irrepressible overflow of infinite benevolence. " 3. The hum- 
bled Godhead — God humbling himself and coming into 
the world in personal form, in Jesus Christ, to engage in 
a conflict with the evils which afflict mankind. 4. God's 
eternal purpose of love and mercy embraces in its scope every 
member of the human race. 5. Eternal life is within the 
reach of all men, and, to bring each and every man into 
the full possession of this transcendent good, God does all 
that he can do and remain God. 6. Man, though a prodigal 



218 EZEKIEL GILMAN ROBINSON. 

son, is still a son of God, — the divine image in which he 
was made being defaced but not destroyed; his original 
divine constitution underlying the principle and habit of 
evil. 7. The brotherhood of man involved in the doctrine 
of the universal fatherhood of God. 8. The destined prog- 
ress and triumph of the kingdom of God, which is a king- 
dom of freedom and truth and righteousness and love. 

But we cannot continue this line of remark. It was the 
firm belief of our departed friend that the changes of 
religious thought yet to come, like those in the past, " will 
not fail to bring the Church to a brighter future. " 

When looking from my study window, in Cobb Lecture 
Hall, during the past two winters, I have seen now and then 
the striking figure of the departed President as he was com- 
ing to his work, through cold and storm, with the nervous 
rapid walk, or rather stride, which impressed me when I 
first saw him, forty years ago ; and as I looked upon his tall 
form, still erect, though bearing the weight of fourscore 
years, and called to mind what an unresting worker (I might 
with justice say what a reckless worker) he had been through 
all his life, and remembered also how sharp and manifold 
had been the sufferings through which he had been called to 
pass, ■ — I was at such times distinctly conscious of a strong 
emotion of moral sublimity, somewhat as I should have felt 
in looking upon a mighty battle-ship that had met and 
fought its country's enemies on all waters round the globe, 
entering the harbor with its sails full set, though bearing on 
masts and sails and flags and hull the marks of many a 
storm and many a battle. In how many among us, young 
and old, pupils and teachers, has his presence awakened 
similar emotions ? We thank God for Ezekiel Gilman 
Eobinson, for his magnificent personality, for the large- 
ness of his vision, for the courage and power with which 



AS A SEER. 219 

he uttered his convictions, for that voice which has been 
heard for a half-century ringing out in the forefront of the 
battle for liberty and truth and righteousness. Of him may 
it be said with emphasis, that baing dead he still speaks, — 
speaks in the men whom he inspired, in the writings which 
he left, and in the illuminating and liberating movement of 
religious thought, which he did so much to originate and 
strengthen and guide. 



NOTE A. 

ON DR. ROBINSON'S INDEPENDENCE. 

Professor W. C. Wilkinson, D. D., calls attention to a trait, 
as distinctively moral as mental, without which, although Dr. 
Eobinson might have foreseen, he would not have provided 
for, the theological exigencies of coming days. — Ed. 

" In theologic discussion, whether in the lecture-room or elsewhere, 
conducted whether with tongue or with pen, the strongest note with 
this great teacher was intellectual independence. Originality, I do 
not say ; but independence. He liked freedom for himself, and he 
would not abridge freedom for others. Probably Dr. Robinson is as 
much responsible as any other individual force operative on minds 
within the limits of the Baptist denomination, for what degree of 
disposition exists among these minds to venture out, following new 
leaders in the fields of theologic thought. As long as he was pro- 
fessor of systematic theology at Rochester, he of course felt honorably 
bound not himself to depart widely in his express teaching, as indeed 
I do not think he felt inclined to depart, from the standards of ortho- 
doxy generally accepted among Baptists. But he could not refrain, 
and he did not refrain, from giving impulses in the direction of free- 
dom and difference. Within a year or so of his death, he said, in 
private conversation with the present writer, that the prospect for. 
genuine religion in the world was never in his opinion so bright as 
now. He rejoiced in the movement of thought. This was instinctive 
with him, inevitable to him. It was an untamable revolt in his spirit 
against traditionalism, against cant. I remember his once saying to 
me, of a certain former student of his who had then already started 



220 EZEKIEL GILMAN ROBINSON. 

on a course of some divergence from old paths and who has since 
followed that divergent course much farther, though remaining still 
within the pale of " evangelical " orthodoxy : " There is not a particle 
of cant about him." This was spoken warmly, as in the very highest 
praise. Cant, to Dr. Robinson, was an unclean spirit to be exorcised. 
He practised against it a relentless exorcism in all his theologic dis- 
cussions. How his clear, incisive words, his often exquisitely chosen, 
though never finically chosen words, did cleanse the atmosphere 
where he talked ! I myself thought, when Dr. Robinson spoke with 
that sanguine optimism concerning the present outlook for religion, 
that, in his joy at seeing an old cant of verbal orthodoxy disappearing, 
he did not take sufficient account of an equally dangerous, perhaps 
more dangerous, new cant of freedom, of progress, of ' scientific ' 
spirit, which was taking the place of that. To be at once free and 
genuine, on the one hand, and humble and reverent, on the other, is 
a difficult reconcilement in practice. But Dr. Robinson seems to me 
to have come as near as any one I have known, to achieving it. If 
he helped some to freedom whom he did not help to humility and 
reverence, that is a result which he would himself sincerely have 
lamented." — W. C. W. 

NOTE B. 

DE. ROBINSON'S LATEST VIEW OF THEOLOGICAL TRAINING. 

Dr. Eobinson repeatedly expressed the conviction that a 
new and much higher provision could now be made for 
ministerial training by taking due account of the fact that 
theological differences no longer strictly follow denominational 
lines. He held that every interest would be best provided for 
in an institution which selected its faculty with regard to 
their ability. and regardless of their denominations, except 
that the leading Protestant bodies should each be represented 
by a teacher of its views concerning the church. There are 
advances toward such a provision in various quarters, and his 
judgment in this matter is one more instance of the singular 
prevision of future conditions which marked his whole career 
as an educator. — Ed. 



IV. 

DR. ROBINSON AS A TEACHER OF THEOLOGY. 



By HEY. A. J. F. BEHRENDS, D.D., 

Brooklyn, New York. 



IV. 

AS A TEACHER OF THEOLOGY. 

IN" reviewing the thirty years which have passed since my 
graduation from the Eochester Theological Seminary, 
there are five things in Dr. Robinson's theological method 
which have impressed me profoundly and permanently. 
They are not connected with the discussion of separate doc- 
trines nor with his theological system. The former was 
not unfrequently fragmentary, and left many things to be 
desired; the latter it is not possible clearly to trace. So 
far as a complete and consistent system existed, it was pres- 
ent only in undeveloped form, and was more frequently 
indicated by oral commentary than by dictated statement. 
Of course, I must be understood as referring only to the 
period of my professional study, — a period of which I 
understand Dr. Robinson himself to have recently declared 
that it had not witnessed the full and final development of 
his views. It was my good fortune, therefore, as I regard 
it, though some might regard it as a misfortune, to have 
enjoyed his instruction when he was still hewing out his 
theological lines. The notes in my possession bear upon 
almost every page the marks of intellectual conflict. Some- 
times the traditional exposition is given, at other times 
all theories are freely and keenly criticised without any 
suggestion of a substitute, and again a tentative statement 
is presented, to which the lecturer was not quite prepared to 
give his positive support. But the seeds of living thought 



J 

224 EZEKIEL GILMAN ROBINSOK 

were everywhere deposited. Single sentences and parts of 
sentences lie embedded in my notes, which indicated a deeper 
view, and which only required thorough and consistent ex- 
position to set the entire picture in a different frame. The 
most important statements do not always occupy the first 
place, nor do they always dominate the exposition. It 
would be easy to give illustrations from such chapters as 
those on inspiration, the moral attributes of God, the Divine 
decrees, the nature and guilt of original sin, — which latter 
phrase, by the way, is repudiated, — external and internal 
calling, the atonement, etc. Often, too, the slow dictation 
was dropped for an oral treatment, of which only snatches 
could be recorded and even remembered, but whose general 
tone gave a new meaning and force to traditional terms. I 
can, of course, speak only for myself; but doing this 
frankly, my tribute is that the numerous scattered and 
unconnected hints have been more productive and fruitful 
than the extended discussion of doctrines. I do not mean 
that the latter were not fresh and helpful, but the pro- 
foundest individuality of the man incarnated itself in the 
interspersed suggestions. I have perused the notes many 
times, and each successive scrutiny has revealed the inade- 
quacy of the theological system as a compact logical and 
philosophical unity; while the scattered hints have served 
to bring more and more strongly into relief the fact that a 
closely linked system was struggling for adequate utterance. 
And yet, even here, the word " system " must be used in the 
secondary sense. Dr. Eobinson never posed as the advocate 
of a philosophical or theological hobby ; he was analytic and 
systematic, but he sharply distinguished between the system- 
atic and the scholastic methods. To him the most sacred of 
all things was a well-established fact, and he insisted that 
no fact must be warped in the interest of a system. 



AS A TEACHER OF THEOLOGY. 225 

The theological lectures which influenced me most pro- 
foundly, and which have left a permanent and salutary effect, 
were the introductory ones. At the time, they were studied 
with less care than was given to the subsequent expositions 
of doctrine ; but as the years have passed, they have more 
and more secured the place of pre-eminence. Dr. Robinson's 
method, at all events, was fixed ; and it is remarkable alike 
for its clearness, its comprehensiveness, and its caution. 
The goal was in sight, and the path by which it must be 
reached, though the strides were sometimes uncertain, and 
the clew was sometimes lost. The aim was a thoroughly 
rational construction of the contents of Christian revelation. 
Platitudes were always discounted and discarded. A rea- 
soned and reasonable faith was the great desideratum. The 
very first sentences of the introduction brought that to the 
front, and in the front it remained. Theology was defined 
as the science of religion ; and religion was traced to its 
root in convictions, by which the sensibility and the will 
were aroused, controlled, and made effective. Thus the dis- 
cussion assumed an eminently intellectual character, and the 
eye was made to glow, the pulses stirred, and the will 
moved, only as great thoughts, clearly perceived and firmly 
grasped, made the soul captive. The intellectual atmosphere, 
however, was never permitted to become speculative and 
scholastic. He insisted that ethics and theology are in- 
separable, that doctrine and duty are always correlative, that 
the practical has its root in the rational, and that the rational 
must bear fruit in the practical. Theology had to do with 
moral character, and character was shaped by rational con- 
victions. Speculative rationalism was discarded by this pro- 
founder view of the conditions under which the reason not 
only ought to act, but under which it always does act, when 
its action is not artificially restrained. The prerogative of 

15 



226 EZEKIEL GILMAN ROBINSON. 

reason was not limited to an examination of external 
evidences, nor to the construction of natural theology. It 
was accorded an infinite outlook, and it was never permitted 
to cease its earnest and enthusiastic search. 

But in attempting to realize a rational construction of the 
contents of Christian revelation, great stress was laid in the 
introduction upon the manifold sources from which reason 
must draw. At the outset, the familiar distinction between 
natural and revealed theology was discarded ; inasmuch as 
the source of revelation is also the author of nature and of 
man. Science and philosophy, therefore, may not be 
ignored. The moral judgments are authoritative in their 
sphere, and theology must take account of them. History, 
also, profane and sacred, is a revelation of God. The Scrip- 
tures, it was insisted, are invested with a primary and 
peculiar authority for the Christian theologian; but the 
Scriptures were brought into organic relation with the 
many-sided life of humanity, and with the constitution 
of nature. Theology could not be permitted to assume 
indifference, much less to foster hostility, to any department 
of research. The voice of God in theology could not con- 
tradict the voice of God which speaks in the stars of heaven 
and in the souls of men; and wherever the voice of God 
speaks, it is authoritative. The vexing question as to the 
source of religious authority was in this way so answered as 
to do justice to every witness for truth, without arbitrarily 
dividing the authority. The author of nature is the Father 
of souls, and by his Spirit has spoken to us through prophets 
and apostles, and with unique clearness through his eternal 
Son. Eevelation has many channels ; it has but one source. 
Science, psychology, philosophy, ethics, and history make 
valuable contributions to theology, — contributions which 
need to be carefully sifted, but whose established results 



AS A TEACHER OF THEOLOGY. 227 

may not be ignored by the interpreter of Holy Scripture and 
by the Christian believer. Theology, thus, with its clearly 
set task, became a comprehensive study, with living rela- 
tions to every department of knowledge. 

A third feature in the introduction to theology, upon 
which great stress was laid, was the limitations of the the- 
ological inquirer. Some of these limitations pertained to 
the inquiring subject, as created, finite, and dependent per- 
sonality; others pertained to the nature of the themes 
submitted to his rational inspection. Every theological 
process must end in mystery. But this result was, in 
turn, justified as inevitable and rational, by an appeal to 
science and psychology. It was shown to belong to the 
constitution of universal nature. Matter cannot be defined. 
The relation between the soul and the body is a profound 
and insoluble mystery. We do not know what the soul is, 
and how it acts. Thus the rationality of the procedure was 
preserved, even though in every instance the result was a 
confession of ignorance. The ignorance was itself supremely 
rational, and it was not permitted to invalidate in the least 
such positive and partial knowledge as had been secured. 

The inevitable result of this preliminary discussion was 
a critical attitude toward every great school of systematic 
theology. Dr. Eobinson was profoundly and habitually 
evangelical ; but he bore the stamp of no party, though in 
living sympathy with all great teachers. He was neither an 
Augustinian, nor a Calvinist, nor an Arminian. He served 
Princeton and Andover with equal severity. He was neither 
old school nor new school. The weak points in every system 
were mercilessly exposed in the interests of a rational con- 
struction, which would give due weight to every fact and to 
all the facts. Thus every system, as a system, was dis- 
credited ; and no system was created to supplant them. As 



228 EZEKIEL GILMAN EOBINSON. 

I listened to the lectures, I seemed to be walking through 
a mass of theological ruins ; and each successive perusal of 
them has only deepened the first impression. True, the 
necessity of system was emphasized, but the qualifying 
statement followed that the widely current aversion to 
systems of theology is justified by the refinements of Catho- 
lic and Protestant scholasticism. The plea for systematic 
theology was simply a call to clear and consistent thinking. 
It was not the advocacy for a rigidly logically concatenated 
scheme, reduced to ideal unity by the dominance of a single 
philosophical principle. Such an attempt Dr. Eobinson did 
not make, though he believed in its existence ; and his treat- 
ment of such systems as had endeavored to give it form was 
such as to act in the way of a wholesome check upon adven- 
turous speculation. 

Some may regard this as a severe and unfriendly judgment 
upon my revered teacher. They may think that they can 
trace a system in his theological lectures. I can discover no 
traces of it, except tentative and partial ones; and I can only 
say that while I thought that I had a fairly rational system 
of theology, which however I now see was an incongruous 
mixture of Lutheranism and Calvinism, when I came under 
Dr. Eobinson 's instruction, his sledge-hammer demolished 
the system which I had, and nothing was done to replace 
it. He never dreamed of the ruin which he wrought, and of 
the long years of mental agony by which it was succeeded. 
But the ruthless havoc was the greatest blessing of my life. 
It broke the chafing bonds of traditionalism; it drove me 
from the mud huts into God's free and boundless air; it 
made me docile and modest in my independence, averse to 
and impatient of speculative dialectics, adhering closely to 
what was known and could be tested, with an ever deepening 
eagerness to enlarge the boundaries of positive and practical 



AS A TEACHER OF THEOLOGY. 229 

knowledge. If at a later day than mine he wrought out a 
complete system, I am glad that I did not have the benefit 
of it; and I doubt whether such a system ever had with him 
scholastic definiteness and comprehensiveness. He must have 
been, from the constitution of his mind, a student and a 
critic to the very last. One of the best results of his in- 
tiuence upon me has been my deep-seated aversion to all 
strictly systematic theology, and my independent critical 
attitude to it. Of such theology I find no trace in the Scrip- 
tures, not even in Paul, who abounds in startling antitheses, 
which he never attempts to reconcile; and I have too keen a 
remembrance of what I have suffered from the systematic 
theologians, past and present, ever to take their yoke upon 
my shoulders. The door of liberty was opened to me by 
the hands of Dr. Robinson ; and in saying this I pay him, 
in my sincere judgment, the highest praise which one man 
can give to another. 

Yet the liberty was not license. Reason was not made 
to depend upon faith, nor faith upon reason; but both rea- 
son and faith were made subordinate to revelation, and 
revelation was made to cover every word and work of God. 
In other words, facts constituted the finality, to be accepted 
by faith, and to be interpreted by reason. Among these 
facts, the supreme place was given to the Holy Scriptures, 
and to Jesus Christ as the Incarnate Son of God. Prophets 
and apostles, when their meaning had been clearly deter- 
mined, never came under the ban of criticism. Christ 
commanded a reverence which was never effusive, but 
always deep and absolute ; and Christ held the central 
place as the key to Holy Scripture. The synthetic method 
was followed in the class-room, not the analytic, nor the 
christological. Yet the whole influence upon me has been 
to christologize every department of theological inquiry ; to 



230 EZEKIEL GILMAN ROBINSON. 

think of God and man, of sin and of redemption, as Christ 
thought of them ; to search for his mind in the documents 
of our faith, and to surrender myself to that. 

The five regulative principles which I have mentioned 
were made to fall under one comprehensive category, though 
this was not specifically named, — the general idea of law. 
This was the perpetual undertone of the discussion, and 
nothing was more frequently and earnestly insisted upon 
than that the first duty of a theological inquirer was a clear 
conception of law, and the rigorous application of the idea 
to all departments of theological study. The absence of a 
complete and thoroughly consistent theological system was 
supplemented by the presence of a vital systematizing 
principle. Nay, the system was incomplete because the 
principle was so searching and exacting. Physical, psy- 
chological, ethical, and redemptive law were not con- 
founded with each other ; their provinces were regarded and 
treated as distinct and separable. But the provinces were 
regarded and treated as concentric circles; they had a 
common centre. Law in every sphere was a transcript of 
the Divine nature ; not the mere enactment of his will, but 
the disclosure of his reason. Law was more than observed 
order. The observed order, provided the ordered facts had 
been rightly understood, was the real and divine order. Its 
testimony was authoritative, which it was foolish and 
wicked to question or ignore. The order observed was the 
order which is, and the order which is was the order which 
cannot be other than it is, because the nature of a thing 
determines its ordered action. No one could get behind the 
observed order to study the nature of a thing, whether of 
matter or of mind or of God; but the nature of a thing 
was disclosed in its ordered action, and was discerned in 
the order as observed Accuracy and clearness in obser- 



AS A TEACHER OF THEOLOGY. 231 

ration were therefore primary and indispensable. Analysis 
became the distinctive method of the theologian and the 
preacher. Rational order is the note of a Divine system, 
whether of creation or of redemption, a rational order 
disclosed in the facts of revelation and of Christian ex- 
perience which are submitted to out inspection. From 
the facts there can be no appeal, bnt the facts can be under- 
stood only when their ordered action has been clearly 
discerned. Thus theology becomes scientific and systematic 
through the application of law to the facts of revelation 
and religion. It was a hard task to impose upon a student ; 
but it was a tremendous spur to industry, and a call to 
independent, continuous, and profound reflection, under the 
guidance of keen and careful observation. 
' I have refrained thus far from any examination and 
criticism of Dr. Robinson's handling of definite doctrines. 
Others are better fitted for such a task than I am. Nor is 
it alon^ these lines that my profoundest indebtedness lies. 
I owe to him the habitual endeavor to construe the facts of 
revelation and of religion in terms of rational knowledge, 
the recognition of the wide region which revelation covers, 
the constant remembrance of the inherent and insuperable 
limitations under which theological inquiry is pursued, a 
profound and ineradicable aversion to scholastic omniscience, 
a devout submission to the authority of Jesus Christ m Holy 
Scripture; and all this under the formative idea of law as 
affirming an inherent and eternal order or rational sequence 
in the revealed facts. These regulative principles have 
only controlled me more and more freely and powerfully 
during the generation which has passed since the time when 
I sat in the dingy classroom where Dr. Eobinson trained his 
theological students. A theological system, determined by 
the idea of law as defined by Dr. Eobinson, and consistently 



232 EZEKIEL OILMAN ROBINSON. 

carrying that idea through to every minutest detail, has never 
been written. I am not sure that it can be written. He 
who achieves the task will be the pioneer in a theological 
revolution. But to have clearly grasped such an idea, and 
to have given it vitality in many minds, is a greater achieve- 
ment, and indicative of profounder theological insight, than 
the publication of ponderous volumes on systematic divinity, 
in which conflicting and contradictory statements are left 
without any earnest attempt to reach and formulate the 
higher synthesis. 

The idea of law is an eminently practicable and fruitful 
theological principle. Partially applied, as it was, by Dr. 
Eobinson, the dominant phase given to it, and the secret 
momentum which it gave to all his discussion, have lodged 
it firmly in many minds as the simplest and the best method 
of theological science. Speaking only for myself, his 
theological influence upon me has been such that, while 
at many points I have been compelled to depart from his 
conclusions and his method of argument, I have in this 
very departure been controlled by the formative principles 
of his own thinking. In fibre I have remained his pupil, 
though, perhaps, in form he would not have cared to own 
me as his expositor. 

NOTE. 
REMINISCENCES OF THE LECTURE-ROOM AT COVINGTON. 

Eev. William Ashmore, D. D., the honored missionary to 
Swatow, China, found in the young professor at Covington the 
same qualities that made him distinguished in later years. 
Dr. Ashmore writes : — 

" When I went to the Western Baptist Theological Institute at 
Covington as a student, my attention was keenly awake to note the 
men who were to be my future teachers. Dr. Pattison and Professor 



AS A TEACHER OF THEOLOGY. 233 

Robinson were there. I am to speak a word just now about the latter. 
He had us in Hebrew and Church History. 

" I found myself confronting a tall man of commanding appear- 
ance, spare of build, with a stately, swinging tread, and a capacious 
spread of forehead. The most striking feature about him was a clear, 
sharp, penetrating gray eye. Tt had no end of various different expres- 
sions. It could be very mild and gentle, and it could bore like an 
auger ; it could help along a hard-worked student in his perplexity, 
and it could make a pert one wince in his self-confidence. 

" Things had to move briskly in the class ; promptness, clearness, and 
exactness were found to be indispensable. We were encouraged to ask 
questions ; but a question was almost sure to be followed by a ques- 
tion in return, sometimes by half a dozen of them. A student was 
often made to answer his own questions ; still more often did he find 
his question ' referred back to the committee,' when he had to restate 
it in a more intelligible and pertinent form. Thus he was cornered 
and elbowed into a habit of looking at his subject on all four sides, 
and of making quite sure that he had got hold of the right end of his 
thought before he opened his mouth and ' spake unadvisedly with his 
lips.' When he chose to, and when the student was really modest 
and humble as well as inquiring, Professor Robinson could so handle 
the matter as to lead the man to feel that he had really thought 
most of it out himself ; which was a great comfort to him, and won- 
derfully stimulating for the next time. He thought that the Pro- 
fessor was a man of fine appreciation. 

" But the way Professor Robinson influenced us most was by his 
side talks along the line of the lessons, and sometimes not of things 
in the lesson, but pertinent to the situation. He was intense in his 
convictions, intense in his utterances, intense in his loyalty to logic 
and truth. We always felt his robust intellectuality, his robust man- 
hood, and his utter contempt for shams. He would lash a sham with 
merciless severity. He was like a well-tempered die, and left his 
mark upon every one more or less, in some cases stamping them with 
an ineffaceable impress of his tremendous personality as a man, a 
teacher, and a preacher." 

AT ROCHESTER. 

It is agreed that Dr. Robinson was at his best in teaching 
Systematic Theology. He himself did not dissent from this 
opinion. Here he was free, imposing, and even picturesque. 
It is of special interest to know how, in the great work of his 
life, lie impressed students of very different types. 



234 EZEKIEL GILMAN ROBINSON. 

We first quote from an unknown writer's contribution 
to the "Journal and Messenger," when Dr. Robinson left 
Rochester for Brown. The comments of Dr. Behrends add 
to its interest. He writes : — ■ 

" I do not believe that any one could have penned these paragraphs 
soon after his graduation. I know that, for myself, the spell of Dr. 
Robinson's personality completely captivated me. I was a Robinson- 
ite when I graduated in every fibre of my mental life, ready to do 
battle for his conclusions. But gradually, slowly but surely, the 
independent and fearless intellectual temper which made his teaching 
glow acted more and more mightily, until, in catching his spirit, I 
became independent of him, without abating one particle in my 
reverence for him." 

The article from which the following quotation is made may 
be in some degree marked by the unshackled vehemence that 
it ascribes to Dr. Robinson : — 

" He magnified his office above all others, and imparted to his stu- 
dents an enthusiasm for theological studies. Himself an independent 
thinker, having little regard for authority, a contempt for pretence 
and cant, an intense love for truth, an almost fierce delight in criti- 
cising opposing systems, a rare facility for terse, sharp statement, with 
little patience with mediocrity,. none with dulness, and with withering 
scorn for laziness, he succeeded in convincing most of his students of 
the worthlessness of all their previous attainments in theology, and 
awakened in them an earnest desire for study, especially for discussion 
and investigation, and a bold, energetic, self-reliant spirit. His 
method, his spirit, rather than his teaching, told upon his students. 
Many of them never understood him, others did not accept his teach- 
ings, but all, in greater or smaller degree, felt the quickening influence of 
his vigorous mind. He was a great educator rather than a great teacher. 
Holding with tenacity to, and insisting with almost impatient vehe- 
mence upon, certain doctrines which he deemed fundamental, pushing 
them to extremes, with logic so relentless as to be illogical, support- 
ing them with props which he himself would have discarded save for 
the necessity for using them laid upon him by his system, holding 
fast to the formulas of the most rigid orthodoxy, striving with manly 
earnestness to find the basal truth in them which he could harmonize 
with his beliefs, yet growing more conscious each year that he taught 
of his divergence from the popular acceptation of these formulas ; 



AS A TEACHER OF THEOLOGY. 235 

goaded by whispers, occasionally open to charges of heresy, he threw 
into his class-room discussions, which always accompanied the didactic 
lectures, a life and charm and fire and power which no student can 
ever forget, or ever cease to be thankful for. He was a most zealous 
worker himself, and kept his classes at work from the first hour of 
the session to the last ; supplied them with new motives, and gave them 
new impulses to vigorous, manly, self-reliant labor, in comparison 
with which many found all the work done at college mere boy's 
play." 

Rev. Norman Fox, D. D., says : — 

" His power to stimulate the intellects of students was unequalled. 
The principal work in his lecture-room was not to force young men 
to accept ideas, but to arouse them to have ideas of their own. Often 
when he came into his room it was with the plainest signs of fatigue 
from travel or protracted labor. After the brief prayer, in a faint 
voice, came the usual inquiry whether there was any question on the 
preceding lecture. Some student would ask for further light, perhaps 
hinting some sharp dissent from the view presented, and instantly 
the tall form was erect as at the sound of a bugle challenging to 
battle, the signs of fatigue were gone, and there commenced a keen 
discussion, whose intense and exciting interest might last through 
the whole hour. Sometimes two or three days would pass without 
any advance to new topics, the time being wholly given to discussion 
of a contested point. ... It was not his particular opinion on this or 
that doctrine, hut his method of forming opinions, which impressed 
itself on the minds of the young men. Many of his former pupils 
are now professors of theology or eminent pastors ; . . . but it is safe to 
say that there is not one of them who in his methods of investigation, 
in the spirit in which he takes up a topic, is not still swayed by the 
method of inquiry which he saw continually before him in that lec- 
ture-room. . . . Again and again was the following scene enacted : A 
student had studied out something which seemed to him entirely to 
overthrow some ancient doctrine ; the next day in class he proceeds 
to state his point ; as he does it rather bunglingly, the Doctor inter- 
rupts him with, ' You mean so and so,' and the student assents, his 
confidence being at the outset well shattered at finding that not only 
has this wonderful idea of his occurred to others before him, but that 
the Doctor can state it much more strongly than he can himself. If 
in the discussion which ensues the student's difficulty is not entirely 
cleared away, the Doctor finally says, ' Well, think it over. You will 
come out all right.' In other words, the student sees that his in- 



236 EZEKIEL GILMAN ROBINSON. 

structor believes that honest investigation will never undermine 
Christianity." 

The Rev. C. B. Crane, D. D., after stating, as Dr. Robinson's 
doctrine, that "in justifying a man God both declares and 
makes him righteous," adds : — 

" What high and animated discussion we had in the class-room 
upon this teaching ! ... It was contrary to the traditional interpre- 
tation of the doctrine. We wondered, questioned, disputed, almost 
fought; and Dr. Robinson, like a radiant Apollo, accepted all our 
challenges, stripped for the combat, and with most of us came out 
victor. 

" It almost maddened him to have his students 'play the boy.' He 
had a way of getting into the room almost as soon as he touched the 
door-knob. One poor feUow forgot this, and so came to grief. The 
Doctor had been called out for a moment, and our unfortunate friend 
. . . took his place at the desk and began a pretended dictation. In an 
instant the Doctor was in the room, and following with flashing eyes 
the student as he sneaked away to his seat. The rebuke was brief but 
blistering, and the victim never quite regained his standing with his 
teacher. 

" We used to hand in anonymous plans of sermons for the Doctor 
to criticise, always hoping that we should not betray ourselves under 
torture. He was at work one day upon one of my own plans ; and 
when the knife touched a nerve, I said, ' Is it not possible that the 
author may have meant it so and so ? ' ' Possibly,' said the Doctor : 
' in which case my criticism will not hold.' A second time I winced, 
and asked the same question. The Doctor looked at me comicaUy 
and said : ' I suspect you are the man who knows best of us all what 
the author of this plan meant.' The class shouted, and I collapsed. 
Sometimes he would toss a plan from him with the exclamation : 
' One could make a hatful of such plans in half an hour.' Then the 
author would drop clean down into the hole of the pit." 

Professor Lemuel Moss, D. D., says : — 

" Perhaps the first thing that the pupil felt was the air of earnest- 
ness and eagerness which pervaded his lecture-room. One must be 
dull even to deadness who was not affected. Studying theology was 
not only a serious business, but an exacting business, from which 
there was neither release nor relaxation. 

" Still more surprising was the matchless freedom which reigned in 



AS A TEACHER OF THEOLOGY. 237 

the class-room. The first personal impression, that the student re- 
ceived was doubtless a sort of mental challenge. Dr. Robinson 
seemed in the student's initial experience unsympathetic, distant, 
austere, not to say haughty and exclusive ; but the prickly burr was 
on the husk and not on the inner kernel. The teacher was positive, 
dogmatic, but not dictatorial ; he guarded the rights of others as well 
as his own. Many a soul was born anew through these throes of dis- 
cussion, and was grateful for a defeat which showed him how to con- 
quer in subsequent conflicts. In these hand-to-hand contests Dr. 
Robinson rendered his supreme service to the students." 

The Eev. E. S. MacArthur, D. D., writes : — 

" But few men have ever taught a class of theological or other stu- 
dents, who could so stimulate them by his presence and his words. 
Tall and stately, with his clean-cut face, flashing eye, and white hair, 
he was a man to be noticed among thousands. . . . He anticipated a 
quarter of a century ago the trend of theological thinking with which 
to-day we are familiar. . . . He exhorted his students not to be 
alarmed when these discussions should come. . . . No one who sat 
under his instruction will forget his prayers at the beginning of each 
session. He walked masterfully and yet modestly into the class- 
room, put down his hat, bowed his head in prayer, talking often so 
low that only such expressions could be heard as ' O Christ, make us 
loyal to truth ; make us love truth more than our prejudices, more 
than we love our systems, more than we love all beside. Thou art 
King in the realm of truth. May we joyously worship at thy feet.' 
Never will his students forget when he took his chair before the class, 
after the opening prayer was offered, and quietly asked, ' Are there 
any questions, gentlemen ? ' Then the questions were poured in upon 
him. Woe to the man who asked a foolish or a weak question! 
Some of his comments on living and dead authors and preachers 
would make spicy reading. . . . His class-room was sometimes a field- 
day at examinations, when the good brethren came in to find out the 
heresy which some supposed was taught in the Seminary. He had a 
marvellous way of decapitating the brethren who accepted his invita- 
tion to ask questions and to scent heresy." 

The suspicion that his views were open to challenge as 
heretical was no doubt due in part to the air of challenge with 
which he often announced them in lecture-room or in pulpit. 
When a controversy that made some noise in its day sprang 



238 EZEKIEL GILMAN ROBINSON. 

up concerning his sermon, now published in the "Madison 
Avenue Lectures," on " The Relation of the Church and the 
Bible," he asked a waggish friend who was supposed to be a 
good judge of orthodoxy, whether he found anything heretical 
in that discourse ; and the answer was : "No, I have heard you 
preach a great many times, and never heard you preach her- 
es} r ; but you always give the impression of doing it. And I 
have heard a great many sermons from . . . [naming another 
professor of theology], and they are always chock-full of her- 
esy ; but no one ever notices it." 

The Rev. Dr. A. J. Sage furnishes a reminiscence of lecture- 
room discipline : — 

" Our class had one member, call him ' Lumley,' who had a propen- 
sity for asking questions which sounded as if they might mean some- 
thing and might represent a real difficulty in the mind of the querist. 
When interrogated and followed up, he would persist in one blind 
statement or inquiry after another, until finally the whole matter 
would fade back into the fog from which it came. Dr. Robinson 
had several times followed these retreating and vanishing problems 
with a patience which astonished the class. One day, when the in- 
quiry had been unusually protracted and elusive, and at last, as usual, 
had come to nothing, the Doctor closed the investigation by remark- 
ing, ' Mr. " Lumley," before you make another inquiry, be kind 
enough to ascertain that you have something clearly defined and im- 
portant to ask about. It is somewhat disappointing to hunt down a 
stag and find that it 's a polecat.' The unanimous amusement of the 
class manifested their sense of the aptness of the illustration." 

A noteworthy element in Dr. Robinson's power over stu- 
dents was that he never for a moment seemed ridiculous. 
His dignity was so unaffected yet complete that his exemption 
from ridicule has hardly seemed worth mentioning. With 
students his steady power and earnestness were always im- 
pressive. One does not laugh at a locomotive or a siege gun. 
And his rare command of terse, tense expressions kept alive 
the feeling that there was power in him. Early in life he was 
fascinated by Carlyle, and his habits of expression were no doubt 
much more affected by Carlyle than by Robert Hall, on whose 
style he afterwards sought for a while to model his own. He 



AS A TEACHER OF THEOLOGY. 239 

did not always hesitate to use against others the lethal weap- 
ons of denunciation and ridicule ; and like Carlyle he some- 
times found the former, but never the latter weapon turned 
against himself. If any one laughed at Carlyle, he laughed at 
loug range ; and Dr. Robinson met his students and his pub- 
lic at close quarters. Even his most playful moods in private 
showed the same quality of ingrained dignity. Something 
was no doubt due to his sense of the ridiculous, and his sensi- 
tiveness to ridicule. This kept him wary, instinctively, not 
studiously. And in close alliance with this should never be 
overlooked the gentle considerateness with which his endless 
task of criticism was performed. He was critical for his stu- 
dent's sake, and courteous for his own sake. The thorough- 
ness of his work was thus made to seem, what it really was, 
thoughtfulness and fidelity in behalf of the student. — Ed. 

ADDITIONAL NOTE FROM COVINGTON. 

Rev. Rufus C. Burleson, D. D., LL. D., President of Baylor 
University, Waco, Texas, furnishes a lively description of the 
Professor in the making : — 

" Dr. Robinson became Professor at Covington in the fall of 1846. 
He was then thirty-one years old, over six feet tall, with high forehead 
and penetrating eyes. He was fresh from Cambridge, and had won 
fame as pastor in Norfolk, Virginia, and as Chaplain of the University 
of Virginia. No professor ever entered upon duties under more em- 
barrassing surroundings. He was utterly unlike his predecessors, 
Professor Ebenezer Dodge and Dr. R. E. Pattison. They were 
mild, lovable, and forbearing as mothers ; hence the stern, imperial 
bearing of Professor Robinson was chilling to the forty-two young 
preachers then assembled in the halls of the Theological Institute. 
His contempt and sneers for all shams and superficial thinking, and for 
such expressions as ' It is about that way,' ' It rather seems to me,' 
'as it were,' caused the students to dread the new professor. He 
demanded that the student should grasp every point profoundly and 
explain it clearly. Dr. Pattison, with the loving heart of a mother 
and the profound wisdom of a philosopher, grasped the situation, and 
at the proper time and place explained the peculiar nature and history 
of the new professor. He said : ' He was born and reared among 



240 EZEKIEL GILMAN ROBINSON". 

New England farmers, who have a great contempt for all hypocrisy and 
outward demonstration of feeling. But often under cold and icy ap- 
pearances there glow hearts full of love and tenderness for friends, 
and of devotion to God and native land.' He said Professor Robin- 
son was exacting in his demands because of his love for profound 
thinking and investigation, and his burning desire to see all young 
preachers thoroughly rooted and grounded in the faith, so as to be 
able to meet and demolish all the superficial scepticism of this age, 
and lead the people of God to higher attainments in divine wisdom 
and knowledge. We all soon rejoiced to find these views of our 
beloved President were eminently true, — that under an apparently 
cold countenance there glowed a noble, pure, and loving heart, and 
that his rigid requirements resulted only from his profound conviction 
that nothing would save this generation from scepticism and heresies 
but the rearing of young preachers 'called of God as was Aaron,' 
with heads and hearts all on fire. We were more deeply penetrated 
with these convictions when we met him in the prayer-meeting, the 
mission-concerts, the sick-room, and when we listened to his pro- 
found and burning words from the pulpit of Ninth Street Baptist 
Church. In all these relations we saw he had the simplicity of a 
little child, the purity of a saint, and the wisdom of a Christian 
philosopher. Though I was born in the extreme South and the son 
of a large slaveholder, I soon regarded him as one of the noblest, 
grandest men of earth; 'and time has that impression deeper made, 
as streams that channels deeper wear.' Whatever success I have 
attained as President of Baylor University for the last forty-five 
years, in instructing over eight thousand young men and young 
ladies, I owe largely to Dr. Robinson and his sainted co-laborers ; 
and my beloved classmates Rev. Dr. Wm. Ashmore, Rev. Dr. Win. 
Moore, Rev. J. R. Downer, Rev. R. H. Taliaferro, and others have 
all been inspired and girded for noble deeds by the same holy 
influence." 



V. 



DR. ROBINSON AS A LEADER IN POST- 
GRADUATE STUDY. 



By PROFESSOR B. O. TRUE, D. D., 
Rochester Theological Seminary. 



V. 

AS A LEADER IN POST-GRADUATE STUDY. 

AFTER fourteen years of constant and conspicuous ser- 
vice as Professor of Theology in Rochester Theologi- 
cal Seminary, Dr. Robinson, with his family, passed a 
large part of the years 1867 and 1868 in Europe. In the 
early autumn of 1868, invigorated by the change and stim- 
ulus of his European experience, he resumed what many of 
his theological students persistently believe was the great 
work of his life. During those last four years of theologi- 
cal instruction, from 1868 to 1872, he was in the prime of 
life and in the full exercise of his superb power. A large 
proportion of his students at that time were mature men. 
Not a few had been soldiers in the civil war. They 
brought the unwonted earnestness, heroism, and devotion 
of the battlefield to the work of the ministry. Many 
had delayed the completion of their college and seminary 
training on account of the war. They were men of rare 
spirit, large experience, mental discipline, and versatile 
talents. Younger students caught the enthusiasm of the 
older meu, and quickly learned the power of definite, per- 
sistent, and consecrated purpose. Dr. Robinson seized the 
opportunity, and magnified his office. His long and success- 
ful experience, intensity, devotion, and acknowledged ability 
gave him, at the very first, an unquestioned mastery. In 
the class-room, as on the street, he might easily have passed 
for a military commander in citizen's dress. His type of 



244 EZEKIEL GILMAN ROBINSON. 

mind and method precluded the treatment of high themes 
in an elementary or a commonplace way. His work was 
never formal or perfunctory. The spirit of earnestness 
and reality impressed every pupil from the first to the last 
hour of his course. 

Whatever he was to other men or elsewhere, by the five 
successive classes to whom he taught theology with tireless 
energy and boundless enthusiasm from 1868 to 1872 (in- 
cluding the class which graduated in 1873) Dr. Robinson 
was considered equal to almost any mental effort, however 
difficult or impossible it might be for ordinary men. 
Beyond a doubt, those were great years, even for him. The 
reputation of the Seminary was established. The present 
grounds were purchased, and in 1869 Trevor Hall was com- 
pleted. The number and quality of the students had never 
been more satisfactory. Dr. Robinson fairly revelled in 
his work. He was at his very best everywhere, and no- 
where more easily than in the class-room, where he worked 
with the greatest efficiency. By many those days are re- 
called with inexpressible gratitude ; to some they furnished 
the opportunity of a lifetime. 

As a preparation for work of a high order, in 1862 the 
earlier two years' course of the Seminary had been length- 
ened to three years. Later Drs. Kendrick and Hackett 
were successively induced to devote their ripest powers to 
the New Testament department. At Dr. Robinson's solici- 
tation, one of the rarest young men of the land, 1 in both 

1 Samuel Emmons Brown was born at Portland, Maine, February 27, 1847, 
graduated at Phillips Academy, Exeter, 1867, at Harvard, 1870, and at Roches- 
ter Theological Seminary, 1873. He studied three years at the universities of 
Leipsic and Halle, 1873-76. He was Acting Professor of New Testament 
Exegesis in Rochester Theological Seminary during the scholastic year 
1876-77, and gave abundant proof of his remarkable ability both as a scholar 
and an instructor. His character commanded general admiration, and with 



AS A LEADER IN POST-GRADUATE STUDY. 245 

scholarship and character, destined to be removed by death 
after a single year of service as professor, was selected and 
specially prepared to become Dr. Hackett's assistant and 
possible successor. All work in the Seminary was of a 
high order, and promise of future advance had never been 
brighter. 

In those last years of theological instruction Dr. Kob- 
inson's entire theological course had come to be practi- 
cally post -collegiate work. It presupposed in students the 
mental discipline and reflection of a full collegiate training, 
and with scarcely an exception the students at that time 
were college graduates. Naturally the scope and method of 
theological instruction were adjusted to these conditions. 
All sources of enlightenment were sought, and all truth was 
welcome. Discussion, if adequate and relevant, was never 
curtailed, because difficult and complex. The results of 
Old and New Testament interpretation, sometimes illus- 
trated microscopically by the examination of a single word, 
sometimes telescopically by the argument or chief purpose 
of an entire epistle, the established conclusions and prom- 
ising hypotheses of natural science, the philosophy of his- 
tory, ancient and modern, and the most notable phases of 
philosophical thought, furnished constant contributions to 
the instruction of the class-room. The relations of theology 
to the whole realm of truth were clearly recognized. The 
suggestion of a four years' course, or of a fourth year for 
supplementary theological study, became distinct and em- 
phatic. This was a favorite hope of Dr. Eobinson, and pro- 
vision for some proper system of advanced work by prepared 
men was his cherished purpose. The material equipments 

his natural ability and exceptional training gave promise of distinguished 
usefulness ; but he was suddenly stricken with typhoid fever, and died in 
Lowell, Massachusetts, August 5, 1877. — B. O. T. 



246 EZEKIEL GILMAN ROBINSON. 

of the Seminary were sufficiently modest, but students felt 
that in the heart of the institution was a thousand-horse- 
power Corliss engine, and that by impulsion, propulsion, or 
expulsion something would he, and, if men remained long 
under Dr. Kobinson, much must be done. 

Other professors of theology gave more attention to author- 
ship. Dr. Robinson gave his best strength to his pupils. 
As a direct result of that course, several members of the 
Class of 1870 proposed to return to Rochester after their 
graduation, for another year of study, under the guidance of 
Dr. Robinson. To this proposition he gave the most cordial 
encouragement. Three members of the class — Professor 
Wayland R. Benedict, now Professor of Philosophy and 
Dean of the University of Cincinnati ; Rev. John T. Beck- 
ley, D.D., pastor of the Epiphany Baptist Church, New 
York ; and the writer — met Dr. Robinson regularly, during 
the scholastic year of 1870-71, not simply for post-collegiate, 
but for post-seminary theological study. Dr. T. J. Morgan, 
the present Corresponding Secretary of the American Bap- 
tist Home Mission Society, a graduate of the Seminary in 
the Class of 1868, though prevented from regular attend- 
ance and full work with the class on account of his duties 
as Corresponding Secretary of the New York Baptist Union 
for Ministerial Education, was frequently present, and 
shared the work of the class. Somewhat similar work, 
though in closer imitation of the German Seminar, had 
been done by Henry B. Smith, but probably by few, per- 
haps by no other, professors of systematic theology in 
America at that time. The members of the graduate class 
represented four different colleges in four widely removed 
sections, of the country. Twice every week, on Tuesday and 
Thursday evenings throughout the Seminary year, from Sep- 
tember to May, the class met in Dr. Robinson's parlors. 



AS A LEADER IN POST-GRADUATE STUDY. 247 

Mrs. Bobinson was always present, and keenly interested. 
She was accustomed to relieve the sessions, often three hours 
in length, by a gracious hospitality which can never be 
forgotten ; and her contributions to the discussions were 
always discriminating, suggestive, and welcome. The work 
consisted of special reading, with the preparation and full 
discussion of papers upon subjects of vital and paramount 
interest to students of theology. 

Among my own manuscripts of that date I find papers on 
" The Historical Books of the Old Testament," " Christian 
and Heathen Morality Compared," " The Testimony of Paul 
to Christ," and "The Sensational School of Philosophy." 
The details of the paper on " The Old Testament " were 
doubtless crude enough to make a modern student devoutly 
grateful for the progress of the last twenty-five years ; but 
the free discussion of the dates, composition, and design 
of those Old Testament books, with special reference to the 
objections to their trustworthiness, under the searching 
analysis and discriminating guidance of Dr. Eobinson, was 
an invaluable preparation for the progress of recent thought. 
The phrase " Higher Criticism " was not then common, but 
much which it involves was largely anticipated. In like 
manner I gratefully recall, as the result of that year's work, 
impressions of Spinoza's philosophy, of his influence upon 
later thought, especially in Germany, and of the striking 
alternative which he proposed, — the rejection of either 
Scriptural miracles or his own philosophy, — an alter- 
native which led to the famous cry, " Spinoza or Christ ? " 
Those long evenings when precious time was lavishly and 
willingly bestowed upon pupils eager in their search for 
truth, would most certainly have been succeeded by similar 
work, had Dr. Eobinson continued to teach theology. The 
next and last year of his work at Bochester was absorbed 



248 EZEKIEL GILMAN ROBINSON. 

by the extra labor of preparing and printing the larger 
portion of his " Christian Theology. " Every paragraph of 
this book is a protest against superficial or commonplace 
work, and a testimony to the author's superior fitness for 
the highest order of theological instruction. 

Had Dr. Eobinson declined the presidency of Brown in 
1872, as he had once done at an earlier date, and had he 
remained at the head of the Theological Seminary, he would 
have made speedy provision for the continuation, in a more 
permanent and systematic way, of the supplementary theo- 
logical work which was done in 1870 and 1871. There are 
those who believe that such provision in the leading scho- 
lastic departments of the Seminary, with suitable prescribed 
work as a prerequisite for admission to advanced classes, 
would be vastly more satisfactory to teachers and students, 
and would secure far better results than either an exclusive 
system of prescribed studies or the option of multiplied and 
confusing electives from the beginning of a theological 
course. 

No man was better fitted to direct such an advance in 
theological education twenty-five years ago than Dr. Eobin- 
son. There was then no Baptist Seminary better situated 
to enlarge and develop its facilities than that which he 
had so firmly established. But after serious hesitation and 
unfeigned reluctance, for what appeared to him to be suffi- 
cient reasons, he went to Providence. Any disposition to 
disparage or undervalue his great work at Brown University 
would be ungracious and unjust. That work has been com- 
pared with the influence . of his . own famous teacher and 
friend, Francis Wayland ; and it is certain that, whatever 
the merits of others, Brown University has had two great 
presidents, Wayland and Eobinson. Yet there were many 
of Dr. Eobinson's theological pupils, who, because they 



AS A LEADER IN POST-GRADUATE STUDY. 249 

knew that he was especially fitted tu give instruction of a 
high order, and that he would be content with no other type 
of theological teaching, greatly regretted a change which 
inevitably compelled him to restrict his daily instruction 
to men at an earlier and less mature stage of mental develop- 
ment than was the case at Eochester. There are those who, 
while grateful beyond words for what Dr. Eobinson has done 
for many men at Brown University, cannot overlook the 
fact that his long experience, fixed habits, and mental char- 
acteristics fitted him to teach men rather than youth. Such 
cannot think without sadness of what might have been, if, 
with twenty more years devoted to theological education, 
and with such suitable support in men and money as he 
deserved and might have received, he had developed, upon 
the broad and firm foundations which he did so much to 
establish, a -really great and adequate Baptist Theological 
Seminary, proportionate to the increased wealth, intelligence, 
and needs of the denomination in the Central and Eastern 
States. 1 Had he continued to teach theology, he would 
certainly have aimed to produce such an institution, and 
he would have chafed like a caged lion had his purpose been 
thwarted. Truth compels the acknowledgment that, after a 
quarter of a century of unparalleled material prosperity, such 
an institution does not exist, even in hopeful promise. It 
is impossible to estimate the immense influence of such a 
Seminary, amply provided with needful facilities, and or- 

1 Provision was made by the founders for the separate corporate existence 
of the Theological Seminary and the University at Rochester, with the 
distinct anticipation that the future removal of the Seminary to New York 
might be highly desirable. This is clearly shown by an extant letter of Dr. 
Maginnie, in his own handwriting. At one time Dr. Robinson earnestly 
advocated tin's removal. The great advantages of the proposal were rec- 
ognized by the local trustees, but strenuous objection was made by the offi- 
cers of the University, especially by Dr. Anderson, and the plan was not 
consummated. — B. 0. T. 



250 EZEKIEL GILMAN ROBINSON. 

dered by such a man. It is not easy to imagine with the 
nineteen years of experience behind him, what more than 
twenty years of additional service as a theological instructor 
might have accomplished; but it is safe to predict that if 
such had been his career, with spared life and health, among 
his contemporaries he would have had no equal in America 
as a teacher of theology, and no superior as a theologian. 

"What Dr. Eobinson was, as a leader in post-graduate 
work, is abundantly understood by those who at Crozer 
Theological Seminary and the University of Chicago received 
his instruction in the maturity and ripe wisdom of his later 
years. He taught " Christian Ethics " with the interest and 
power of Wayland and Hopkins, and, what was best of all, 
he illustrated his theme by his own high and almost ideal 
realization of his constant obligations to God and to men. 
He taught " Christian Evidences " with a preparation not 
primarily designed for public utterance, but as one who had 
" felt out, fought out, and thought out " every phase of the 
subject for his own satisfaction, and for the peace of his 
own soul. 

Dr. Eobinson was a leader in higher professional educa- 
tion from personal conviction and not merely by the cir- 
cumstances of his position. Fifty years ago, when many 
superior men, notably Dr. Wayland, gave only a qualified 
support and sympathy to theological seminaries, Dr. Eobin- 
son heartily "believed in them, and no man in the Baptist 
denomination did more to justify their existence and to 
demonstrate their great value. Twenty -five years ago, when 
there was a general demand among Congregationalists and 
Presbyterians for more practical training and for practical 
men in the ministry, Dr. Eobinson cordially and wisely 
encouraged men, who had the inclination and opportunity, to 
prolong their special theological studies, and, if possible, to 



AS A LEADER IN POST-GRADUATE STUDY. 251 

anticipate the urgent questions of the future by earnest prep- 
aration for their solution. The result is, that few of his 
pupils have been surprised, and none dismayed, by the inev- 
itable transitions and changed formulas of current thought. 
They have been men with their faces towards the sunrise, 
welcoming light, but unwilling with indiscriminate haste 
to put darkness for light and light for darkness. They have 
not mistaken the restatement of old errors for new truth, 
neither have they contentedly closed with the conservative 
dictum, " what is true is not new, and what is new is not 
true. " For the happy via media between conservatism and 
radicalism Dr. Kobinson's theological, students owe to him 
an incalculable debt. 

His faith in prolonged preparation for professional work 
remained firm to the end. It was abundantly manifest in 
his remarkable adjustment at seventy-five years of age to 
unaccustomed conditions, and in his helpful co-operation 
with the novel plans of younger men. Perhaps he was never 
a typical professor, after the order of the schools, because he 
rose above the petty conventionalities of smaller men. But 
this gave him special fitness for exceptional work. He was 
a willing and persistent stranger to perfunctory professional- 
ism, both in the class-room and in the pulpit. Hence he was 
particularly adapted to render those ready, incisive, correct 
judgments which are constantly demanded in the higher 
instruction of advanced students. Certainly more than any 
man of his years, and perhaps, without any qualification, 
more than any other man, he illustrated at Chicago that 
high type of post-graduate instruction which he anticipated 
at Eochester twenty years before. The conditions were very 
diverse, but the work was essentially the same. No varia- 
tions of time, place, or circumstance were allowed to dimin- 
ish the fidelity and thoroughness of his instruction. As a 



252 EZEKIEL GILMAN ROBINSON. 

consequence, the best qualified men sought Dr. Eobinson's 
instruction, and often selected their previous studies with 
reference to his work. At Chicago, with famous professors 
in the prime of life, no students were more profited than his 
pupils, and no instruction was more eagerly sought than that 
of the man who, though nearly fourscore years of age, taught 
with a vigor and efficiency unusual in most men of middle 
life. 

Dr. Eobinson fully believed that the responsible care of 
property, life, character, and destiny was sacred work, and 
that it should not be undertaken lightly or unadvisedly. 
No price could be too great, and no vigilance too constant, 
in the preparation for such work. Therefore he taught men 
to study as ardently as they prayed or preached. He be- 
lieved in prolonged and persistent search for truth, " as for 
hid treasure. " " Buy the truth and sell it not, " was the 
exhortation of his life. Yet lie constantly recognized the 
limitations of human thought, and turned from other and 
inadequate sources of authority to the revelation of nature, 
of man's moral constitution, and of the sacred Scriptures, 
with grateful, reverent, and discriminating faith. There 
were lacunce in his system of theology. He often paused in 
silence before questions of " doubtful disputation, " when 
there was no possibility of credible utterance. His emphatic 
recognition of the necessary limitations of human knowledge, 
no less than the' power of his positive affiimations, fitted him 
to be a marked leader of men. 

It is yet too early to estimate the place which will be 
accorded to . Dr. Eobinson as a systematic theologian ; but 
as a religious teacher his place is assured. 

The elder Hodge was doubtless more learned in the his- 
torical theology of the reformed churches ; but no man 
could imagine Dr. Eobinson boasting, as did Dr. Hodge, 



AS A LEADER IN POST-GRADUATE STUDY. 253 

that no new idea in theology had ever been hospitably 
entertained at Princeton Seminary throughout its entire 
history. Dr. Park was a master of language, plausible in 
argument, and skilful in the art of expression. Henry B. 
Smith was more familiar with German philosophical and 
theological thought, more appreciative of its excellences 
and more discriminatingly sensitive to its dangers, than 
any American theologian of his day. His service in 
theological instruction was invaluable. But as an inde- 
pendent thinker, who induced others to think, of all his 
contemporaries perhaps only Horace Bushnell should be 
compared with Dr. Robinson. But Bushnell's thought, 
always stimulating and vigorous, was critical and one-sided 
rather than symmetrical and constructive. Both Bushnell 
and Robinson were acute, intense, alert, broad-minded, rev- 
erent. Neither was held by the external authority of con- 
fessions and great names, as was the elder Hodge ; neither 
cultivated the polished rhetoric of Park ; yet both were 
masters of a unique and vigorous style. Neither was, 
from early life, so widely conversant with the details of 
German thought as was Henry B. Smith ; but as thinkers 
who sought beneath customary formulas for the " eternal 
verities," who demanded as immovable supports of their 
faith essential realities, Bushnell and Robinson were not 
unlike. If at one time Bushnell seemed more radical than 
Robinson, it must be remembered that Bushnell became 
conservative with years. And however radical Robinson 
may have seemed, he was never dazed with mere novelty. 
He was discriminating and courageous. He strove to prove 
all things, and to hold fast that and only that which 
is good. He did not acknowledge the authority of any 
uninspired teacher. However he may be regarded as a theo- 
logian, his place as a great teacher of theology is assured. 



254 EZEKIEL GILMAN ROBINSON. 

He has impressed himself indelibly upon hundreds of living 
men. 

Were I obliged to express in two words the secret of his 
remarkable power, I would say fitness and fidelity, or, pos- 
sibly, ability and duty. His loyalty to moral convictions, 
to great spiritual realities, joined to his great ability, gave 
him supreme mastery over his pupils, and lifted him far 
above ordinary men. Only One was his Master. There was 
no divided allegiance. His earthly work is finished, but the 
influence of that work is deathless. " Being dead, he yet 
speaketh. " 



VI. 



DR. ROBINSON AS A TEACHER OF HOM- 
ILETICS AND AS A PREACHER. 



By REV. WAYLAND HOYT, D. D., 

Minneapolis, Minnesota. 



VI. 

AS TEACHER OF HOMILETICS, AND AS PREACHER. 

V\/"HEN I was student in the Rochester Theological Sem- 
inary, both the chair of Theology and the chair of 
Homiletics were filled by Dr. Robinson. It is needless to 
say that he filled both of them, and the last as splendidly 
as the first. The Rochester Theological Seminary was then 
a school with meagre endowment and equipment, compelling 
much doubling of work on the part of the few professors. 
I never got anywhere such notion of shouldering various, 
and even sometimes apparently antagonistic, duties as I did 
in those days from Dr. Robinson. He was in the very 
prime of his rare manhood, at the full blooming point of his 
physical and mental vigor. He was almost everything to 
the Seminary, — at once its engine and its engineer. He 
was general scurrier for funds for it, presiding officer over 
it, teacher of Theology and of Homiletics in it, editor of the 
"Christian Review" also, and almost every Sunday preacher 
somewhere, — frequently stated supply for some church in 
Rochester or in Albany or in New York. The absolute 
tirelessness of the man made upon me profound impression. 
The marvellous ease with which he wrought so constantly 
and so variously was also as evident as the mass and weight 
of work to which he set his hand. And the wonderful 
freshness of him, — ■ never a trace of exhaustion, never the 
least lagging from high ideal of finished duty, never a bit of 
slouch or shabbiness, never the suggestion of an excuse for 

17 



258 EZEKIEL GILMAN ROBIXSON. 

doing anything slightingly because so much was given him to 
do. Well, the sight of him to me was like the vision of the 
strong sea, which no commerce can overweight ; and contact 
with him was as when one catches the tonic of the salt- 
breezes. 

When, then, on each Wednesday afternoon, which was 
always Homiletic day, Dr. Robinson turned the attention 
of his class from the study of Theology to the study of the 
making of sermons, there was no relaxing of his high energy 
or ceasing in his scrupulous and manly thoroughness. 
Prince of theological teachers, as he was, and doubtless 
looking at that as his main function, there was no evidence 
of side -play feeling when he turned toward Homiletics ; he 
was as princely here, as nobly serious, as inspiring, as stir- 
ringly magnetic. 

The core of the teaching-system of Dr. Arnold of Rugby 
was to show the pupil how to do it himself, and to make 
him do it. This was pre-eminently Dr. Robinson's method 
of teaching Homiletics. He would insist and keep on 
insisting that the fellow do it himself. He did not, there- 
fore, so much deliver formal lectures on the subject of 
sermon-making. He rather kept giving informal hints and 
suggestions, taking his departure from the production of 
some student. Through the distances of years comes to me 
the memory of his emphasis on plan. No clear, orderly, 
conclusive, persuading speech without distinctly imaged 
plan for such speech in the mind of the speaker, — this was 
his fundamental dictum. The bones of the thing must be 
exact and precisely articulated before you proceeded to wrap 
the flesh around it. How remorselessly hostile he was 
against all aimless and merely padding speech! How 
quickly, and severely even, he would strip it off, hunting 
for the real and sustaining skeleton of thought beneath ; and 



AS TEACHER OF IIOMILETICS, AND AS PREACHER. 259 

when, as often happened, there was no such skeleton, how 
evidently he made the emptiness of the whole thing help- 
lessly gape before you ! For a large part of the first year in 
which one came under Dr. Robinson in Homiletics, he held 
his students to making plans. " Tut ! " he would say, glanc- 
ing through some careless and unthoughtful plan, and fling- 
ing it aside in a way which once seen could never be 
forgotten, " one could make a hatful of such plans in half 
an hour. " Then would follow some strong, clear instruc- 
tion on the absolute necessity of plans, on the right method 
of fashioning one, — on introduction, statement of theme, 
argument, application, peroration. How living, incisive, 
shocking into vigor as with an electric battery, his speech 
would be ! How his words burned themselves into the 
memory! What glimpses he gave one of the nobility of 
preaching! With what shame he whelmed one at the 
thought of undertaking so lofty a function except in the 
most honest, thoughtful, sincere way ! How he caused the 
ideal of real preaching and the real preacher to name and 
glow ! How he fascinated into the pursuit of it ! How he 
made one feel like a racer stripped for the race, and intent 
on reaching the shining goal ! Mere professionalism in 
preaching, — withering was his scorn of it. But the essen- 
tial manliness of preaching and the need of manhood in the 
doing it, — how he would lay hold of you with this idea, 
catch you with it, impel you toward it, make you vow in 
your innermost soul you would achieve it! The contagion 
of his enthusiasm, — how it would sweep through that class ! 
One might as well try to be listless whirled in a cyclone. 
How I have seen attention stretch and strain until one 
forgot to breathe, in the presence of some of his masterful 
utterances about preaching ! 

But severe as Dr. Eobinson was toward a careless and 



260 EZEKIEL GILMAN ROBINSON. 

shiftless thoughtlessness, no mother could be kinder toward 
a child than he toward any real thinking, or attempt at it, 
even though the thinking might be faulty. Said Dr. Arnold 
of Eugby, of a pupil not bright, but grandly toilful, " I 
would stand to that man hat in hand. " I rarely think of 
that sentence that I do not think of Dr. Robinson as illus- 
trating it. If any one ever called him cold or hard, such 
did not know his inner heart. He would brood over some 
poor plan, but with real attempt and thought in it, as a 
June sky does over laggard flowers. He would so delicately 
praise and so stimulatingly ; with such kindness suggest 
better method; put such courage into the man who really 
tried. And when the man had produced a better plan, he 
would so graciously recognize it, notice so painstakingly 
the steps and elements of advance. 

After such drill in plan-making would follow equally 
careful drill in sermon-making. Now, having analyzed 
the parts of sermons, and carefully studied in this live way 
the several divisions of them, you must synthetize the 
components, — put them all together in a finished whole. 
Here came in the study of exegesis for sermons, proportion 
of contents, language, etc. Woe to the man who did not 
do his best! What summer for the man who did his best, 
though that best were ideally poor! No clearer, keener, 
truthfuller, at the same time really kinder atmosphere of 
criticism ever reigned in any lecture-room. And what in- 
finite pains he took with your production! You read your 
sermon before him and before the class ; you were to take 
note of all the criticisms to which himself and the class, 
after free discussion, gave consent ; you must then rewrite 
your sermon, taking heed of all these criticisms ; you must 
then visit him in his study, and Dr. Eobinson would again 
go through the whole thing with you in the carefullest way. 



AS TEACHER OF HOMILETICS, AND AS PREACHER. 261 

How much he taught you thus ! You had done it yourself. 
What you had learned of sermon-making was thus inde- 
structibly your own. I used to wonder how he could get 
time for it all ; but he did. The impulse I got from ser- 
mons produced in this way, while I was his student, has 
never passed ; is as fresh and forceful and helpful now, as 
when, years back, I would leave his study-door. 

I think Dr. Robinson, at least in the Baptist denomina- 
tion, — nor would I limit it there, so great was the widen- 
ing and reflex influence of his work, — plainly introduced 
a new era of preaching. He lifted the level of it, he 
enlarged the function of it, he enriched the quality of 
it, he strengthened the sceptre of it, he ennobled the 
idea of it. 

Of extemporaneous preachers Dr. Robinson was the fore- 
most. And of Dr. Robinson himself, as preacher, what 
better description can be given than by these sentences, 
culled from the concluding lecture of his own Yale lectures 
on preaching ? He says : " Rant and rhapsody and declama- 
tion and rambling garrulity, sometimes known as extempo- 
raneous preaching, are a disgrace to Christianity, and always 
offensive to people of discernment. The first thing always 
is clear and just thought, with its appropriate expression. " 
How clear and just his thought, how appropriate his expres- 
sion, what severe and noble freedom from any rambling rant 
of mere harangue in him ! 

" Choice language is not like a dress-coat that can be 
put on or off as occasion calls ; it must come, if at all, from 
within, and to be natural and effective must come without 
effort. The best language, like true gentlemanliness, has 
its seat in the depths of the soul, and cannot be put on as 
we change our apparel. " And who ever listened to Dr. 
Robinson, who did not feel that the fibre of him, even to 



262 EZEKIEL GILMAN ROBINSON. 

the last shred of it, was thus strenuously cultured ? " Please 
banish, therefore, from your minds all notions of great ser- 
mons on small preparations. Impromptu thoughts and 
deep emotions cannot be safely expected to come just when 
wanted. The only inspiration that any man who is to ex- 
temporize can rely on with safety, is that which springs 
from being filled with the thought and spirit of his subject. " 
You could not get rid of the impression, when Dr. Eobinson 
was preaching, that his theme thralled him, that he was not 
thinking of himself, but was only eager to make you know 
the truth he himself, through study, prostrate prayer, ear- 
nest reflection, and sincere experience, had come to know. 

" In an age like ours, of great apparent penetration, but of 
shallow emotion, there is no means of protecting one's self 
against error, and no resource in battling against it or in 
enforcing the authority of truth on others, like that of a 
complete surrender of soul to the control of the personal 
Christ. Let his Gospel do its full work in moulding your 
characters after his divine pattern ; then will your words be 
instinct with a life no eloquence can impart, and carry with 
them something of the authority with which the Gospel was 
first spoken to the world." 

And Dr. Eobinson spoke with the authority and the elo- 
quence and the vitalizing power of a soul in complete sur- 
render to the_ control of the personal Christ. 

Like a waft of wondrous music, hushing all discordances, 
and binding with an imperial peace, and opening reaches of 
awing truth, and lifting into rapt communion with the 
Unseen Holy, abides with me the memory of those prayers 
of his in the Seminary chapel, when the day's work was 
done, and he led us and waited with us in devotion before 
the personal Christ. 



AS TEACHER OF HOMILETICS, AND AS PREACHER. 263 

NOTE A. 

ON DR ROBINSON'S PULPIT MANNER. 

From the Memorial Address before Brown University, by Rev. T. D. 
Anderson, D. D. 

It was in the sermon that the powerful personality came 
into fullest manifestation. So potent was the personality of 
the man, and so strong his personal magnetism, that his whole 
manner, though unconsciously" observed, is clearly photographed 
on the memory. Leaning over the desk, and resting his hands 
on either side of the Bible, he slowly and distinctly reads the 
text; then, removing his eyeglasses and assuming an erect 
position, with shoulders thrown back and chest expanded, after 
a brief silence, in slow and measured tones he gives utterance 
to some short and pithy sentence. Having taken firm position, 
he slowly continues his march of progress until the proposition 
is announced and the analytical discussion begun. Thus far 
the preacher seems to have been feeling his way. Apart from 
the physical effort of articulation, the mind is wellnigh the 
exclusive factor in the discourse ; the orator has not yet been 
aroused ; gestures have been few ; the left hand has again and 
again toyed with the button of the trousers' pocket, but the 
preacher is still conscious of proprieties and restrains it' from 
entering. But as the discourse advances and the thought 
unfolds, the manner becomes more and more animated ; and 
occasionally at some one point in the discourse, as the man 
becomes profoundly interested in his theme, and the orator 
thrills under the magnetic response of his congregation, the 
soul takes fire and carries the body with it in its mighty 
onward rush. The left hand, no longer under restraint, is 
thrust deep into the pocket, the right hand is in vigorous 
action, the voice rings out clear and distinct in the upper 
register, and sometimes the curiously arranged locks of hair 
are dislodged and fall in confusion about the head of the 
preacher. It is quite possible that those who heard the 
preacher in his latter days only may never have seen this dis- 
play of energy, or felt the immense personal magnetism of the 



264 EZEKIEL GILMAN ROBINSON". 

orator ; but those who remember him in the early days of his 
presidency, when he filled with a deeply interested congrega- 
tion the " aching void " of the First Baptist Meeting-House, 
will bear testimony both to the energy and magnetism of his 
pulpit oratory. 

But while the manner of the preacher was striking, it was 
the matter of his discourse which made him pre-eminent. . . . 
He was pre-eminently an instructive preacher. Not infre- 
quently were his sermons packed with the results of the think- 
ing of months and years. On special occasions he appeared a 
veritable giant in intellectual power. He chose the extem- 
poraneous method of delivery. ... But the extemporaneous 
method did not exempt him from careful preparation. ... It 
was only through the most exacting mental discipline and the 
most patient literary cultivation that he became the consum- 
mate master of unwritten discourse that he was. . . . 

His sermons in general were characterized by comprehen- 
siveness of thought, by keenness of analysis, by sharp discrim- 
ination in definition, by clear, forceful, and elegant diction, by 
honesty and earnestness of purpose, and on occasion by tremen- 
dous power of appeal. Those who heard his first baccalaureate 
sermon from the text " Christ, the wisdom of God," will not 
deny his power of impassioned utterance ; while those who 
heard his sermon on College Fast Day from the text " So they 
are without excuse," will bear witness to the overwhelming 
force of his pathetic appeal. 

One other characteristic of his preaching . . . was what 
might be called his intellectual honesty. His moral honesty 
was shown as, shunning all hypocrisy, he preached level with 
his convictions. His intellectual honesty he illustrated as, 
guarding against prejudice, he preached level with his thinking. 
At times the critical hearer, following a masterly discourse to 
its conclusion, might think the whole had not been told ; ques- 
tions might suggest themselves which the preacher had not 
answered. On second thought the critic would discover that 
some of these questions the preacher himself had started by 
his own relentless thinking, and on still deeper thought he 
would discover that frequently the failure to answer was not 



AS TEACHER OF HOMILETICS, AND AS PREACHER. 265 

due so much to the poverty of the preacher's thinking as to 
the limitations of human thought. He thought as earnestly 
and as far as he could, and very few thought farther ; but 
where his thinking stopped, there his sermon stopped also. 
... He knew but in part, and he was honest enough to 
prophesy but in part. 

NOTE B. 

DR. ROBINSON'S PREACHING IN PROVIDENCE. 

The following notice of a special period of pulpit service in 
Providence is furnished by an alumnus of Brown, Professor 
B. C. Taylor, D. D., of Crozer Theological Seminary : — 

" When Dr. Robinson became president of Brown, Dr. Caldwell had 
just resigned from the pastorate of the First Baptist Church, and for 
about a year the new president was called upon to fill the vacated 
pulpit, part of the time preaching each successive Sunday, though 
occasionally, to the regret of the audience accustomed to listen to him, 
another would take his place. There were certain features of the 
audience room of the First Baptist Meeting-House that probably had 
a good deal to do with the habitual condition of the congregations 
accustomed to assemble there. The pulpit was one of those box 
affairs perched up against the wall high enough to be nearly on a 
level with the galleries, and thus decidedly above the heads of most 
of the audience, and in this the preacher was expected to shut himself 
off from his hearers ; and the distance between the two was ordinarily 
very great. 

" Then, too, the pews were so constructed that their backs were 
high enough to reach with convenience the heads of most persons, so 
that when the regular worshippers had entered their own pews and 
carefully shut the doors, they had no fear of being disturbed by any 
intruders, could put themselves in a very comfortable position, and 
as a general thing slept soundly. 

" The students of the University, being allowed to worship where 
they wished, preferred generally to go to some other church. 

" When Dr. Robinson began his service with the church, all was 
changed at once. The house, both main floor and galleries, was well 
filled with an audience made up of those representing the intellect of 
the city; and none of them slept. Though the sermons were not 
especially intended for the students, these were evidently prominent 



266 EZEKIEL GILMAN ROBINSON. 

in the preacher's thought, and they did not fail to go to hear him. 
The audiences consisted largely of men from the professional and busi- 
ness classes ; and while the sermons challenged the powers of trained 
intellects, they were yet presented so simply, clearly, and powerfully 
that none could fail to be moved by them. 

" Dr. Robinson's services were sought by other churches, both of 
his own denomination and of others, the Congregationalists and 
the Unitarians ; and he never lacked a large and appreciative 
audience." — B. C. T. 



VII. 



DR. ROBINSON AS PRESIDENT OF BROWN 
UNIVERSITY. 



By PRESIDENT E. B. ANDREWS, D.D., LL. D., 
Brown University. 



T 



VII. 

AS PRESIDENT OF BROWN UNIVERSITY. 

'HE last great piece of his life-work Dr. Robinson 
accomplished as head of Brown University. His 
teaching, while in tins position, also his mental, moral, and 
religious characteristics at large, are reviewed elsewhere. 
It is proposed here simply to set forth his record as the 
chief administrative officer of the University. 

Dr. Robinson began his presidency at a time (1872) which 
was in certain important respects favorable for his success. 
President Sears had resigned in 1867, and the years between 
this date and 1872 formed a kind of interregnum. For one 
year Professor George I. Chace was president ad interim, 
and then followed the four years of Dr. Caswell's presi- 
dency. Each of these gentlemen did for the University all 
that it was possible for him to do under the circumstances. 
The teaching in Philosophy and Ethics, continuing the 
entire five years in the hands of Dr. Chace, did not suffer ; 
and Dr. Caswell had no little success in soliciting funds. 
Still, as it was universally understood that this regime was 
temporary, all were ready to welcome a president whose 
views and power might be expected to impress the develop- 
ment of the University for many years. 

Moreover, Dr. Robinson came to the University with 
fame, as her most distinguished living son. Many remem- 
bered the high rank which, while in college, he had 
attained as a student and a speaker. His writings, the 



270 EZEKIEL GILMAN ROBINSON- 

numerous positions of prominence which he had ably filled, 
and especially his high reputation as a thinker and a 
teacher, permitted none to doubt the wisdom of the Corpo- 
ration in choosing him to direct the affairs of the Uni- 
versity. 

In one point, indeed, the promise of his success was less 
complete. In 1872 the Corporation of the University, be- 
sides being exceedingly conservative, contained conflicting 
elements, the result of ill-feeling and contention engen- 
dered in previous years. Each of its factions seemed at 
times more intent upon carrying its own point against 
opponents than upon advancing the welfare of the Univer- 
sity. A bold and progressive policy on the part of the 
President bade fair to be extremely difficult. Whatever 
measure or line of measures he might adopt, some one was 
likely to think that he had sided with a party, and to 
oppose him in consequence. As a matter of fact, this infe- 
licity did beset President Eobinson through almost his 
entire administration, making his success the more remark- 
able and the more to his credit. What still further 
heightens the merit of his achievement is the fact that to 
the end of his term he personally performed the whole work 
of instruction in the department of Philosophy with the 
single exception of that in Logic. Devoted teacher, that he 
was, he felt himself imperatively called to this work, and 
was unwilling- to relinquish any part of it to allow himself 
proper time and strength for the consuming task of 
administration. 

Besides his obvious duties as an executive officer, the 
administration of rules and regulations and insistence upon 
order, fidelity, and progress in the various parts of the 
work intrusted to him, a college president must also be a 
business manager, an educational manager, and a discipli- 



AS PRESIDENT OF BROWN UNIVERSITY. 271 

narian. As business manager, he has to provide and con- 
serve facilities for training minds. He thus comes, through 
his trustees and otherwise, into relation with the public, 
testing his tact, popularity, and influence. As an educa- 
tional manager, he is called upon to supervise the use of the 
educational provision placed at his command. He must, in 
conjunction with his colleagues, determine the order and 
nature of the subjects taught, and he ought to have much 
influence over the methods of teaching, though he cannot 
dictate these. There is thus put to the test : (1) his abstract 
knowledge of educational problems and of their proper 
solution ; in other words, his comprehension of the task to 
be accomplished; (2) his skill in the use of his means, for 
he must make them go as far as possible ; (3) his influence 
with the faculty ; and (4) his intellectual and moral power 
over his pupils in general, — those, that is, who wish to do 
well and need only to be shown the way. As a disciplina- 
rian the college president has to deal with idle, vicious, and 
refractory students, in particular. The best educators often 
fail here, as the best disciplinarians often fail in teaching. 

How well Dr. Robinson bore himself under each of these 
three great demands of his office, the following paragraphs 
will indicate ; and they will show that, in spite of the 
obstacles which he found in his way, he was enabled to see 
his labors for the University crowned with gratifying suc- 
cess. If any one will contrast the condition of the Univer- 
sity in 1889 with its condition in 1872, he will see clear 
proof of President Eobinson's leadership; for the changes 
of these seventeen years were the results, not of natural 
growth, which must have come at any rate, but of growth 
under strong propulsion and guidance. 

In the material resources of the University his adminis- 
tration witnessed an increase greater than ever occurred in 



272 EZEKIEL GILMAN ROBINSON. 

the same length of time at any preceding period. He 
wanted for the University more in buildings and endow- 
ment than it received, and made vigorous efforts to get more. 
He constantly emphasized the absolute need of large sums 
in order to the proper development of the work in his 
charge. Still, everything considered, that he obtained so 
much is more wonderful than that he did not obtain the 
whole amount sought. 

The material advance made under the Robinson adminis- 
tration is illustrated by the increase between 1872 and 1889 
in the University's funds, and its property in buildings and 
grounds. In these years the new Library Building was 
erected, costing, with the land on which it stands, over 
$110,000. Slater Hall, Sayles Hall, and Wilson Hall also 
all date from this time. The Lyman fund for the Gymna- 
sium was received during these years, and most of the fund 
for supporting instruction in it raised. Rhode Island Hall 
was greatly enlarged, and old University Hall renovated 
from top to bottom, making it in effect a new building. 
The valuable Metcalf estate was acquired, and the money 
promised by Hon. Herbert W. Ladcl, which subsequently 
went to erect the Ladd Observatory. In all, the Univer- 
sity's material resources were enlarged during President 
Robinson's seventeen years by not less than nine hundred 
and twenty-five thousand dollars. In this computation no 
account is taken of the increase in books and apparatus 
continually going on, but so difficult to estimate. The Pres- 
ident introduced a great many new provisions for the daily 
comfort of the students. He improved the external appear- 
ance of the grounds by grading them, and placed and kept 
the buildings in better order every way than had ever char- 
acterized them before. Some part of the emolument thus 
sketched the University would have realized under any 



AS PRESIDENT OF BROWN UNIVERSITY. 273 

administration ; yet a very great proportion of it certainly 
resulted from the President's efforts and influence. 1 

Dr. Eobinson had no special fitness, of a positive order, 
for the business of securing funds ; in some respects quite 
the reverse. He was naturally reserved and dignified. His 
thinking was upon high and abstract themes. He could 
not gossip familiarly with men occupying the ordinary 
plane of mental life. When he tried to do so, he usually 
failed. On the other hand, most of his words and acts were 
very discreet. His utterances on religious subjects, though 
positive, were always catholic. He was no partisan in pol- 
itics, and was fortunate enough to have no offensive hobby 
touching any social reform. Being thus, perforce, without 
prejudice against him, the public was open to the favorable 
impressions which Dr. Eobinson' s sterling character, as also 
his appearance and address, was calculated to make. His 
dignified presence and his strong yet elegant speech, when- 
ever he came before an audience, did much to bring friends 
and resources to the University. In a platform talk, in for- 
mal public lecturing, and especially in the pulpit, the Pres- 
ident was peerless, — an ornament to the University which 
cannot but have exerted a powerful attraction in its favor. 
Students of other institutions, and many, besides, often 
remarked : " How fine a thing it must be for a college to 
have such a man at its head ! " 

The teaching force was greatly strengthened during the 
Eobinson Presidency. The Hazard Professorship of Physics 
was established and filled, also the Professorship of Zoology 
and Geology, and that of Botany. The instruction in Eng- 
lish, in Mathematics, and in Modern Languages was mate- 
rially broadened and improved. History and Political 
Economy, for the teaching of which the same professor had 

1 See Note on page 278. — Ed. 
18 



274 EZEKIEL GILMAN ROBINSON. 

hitherto been responsible, were divided, and assigned to 
separate hands. A similar division was made between 
Astronomy and Mathematics. The old office of Eegistrar 
was made into two offices, one of them filled by a compe- 
tent mechanic, able to supervise the buildings and grounds, 
— an arrangement that still continues, and has proved most 
wise. 

Eecognizing that " new occasions teach new duties, " Dr. 
Eobinson was always advocating extension, enlargement, 
and enrichment in the curriculum ; such changes and addi- 
tions as would give the University the best attainable life 
and efficiency in view of new demands upon it, while retain- 
ing all that its past history had proved permanently worth - 
ful. He pressed not only for better efficiency in the 
departments already established, but for new departments, 
larger facilities, more science with the laboratories necessary 
for 'teaching it well, broader and higher instruction generally. 
Especially did he desire the best possible training in English, 
the fullest mastery and the purest use of our mother tongue. 

Dr. Eobinson earnestly insisted that it was the Univer- 
sity's duty and privilege to undertake graduate instruction 
so fast and far as the strength of the Faculty might warrant. 
To this end he wished not only increased resources for teach- 
ing, but foundations for fellowships, to support graduate 
students either in residence at Alma Mater, or, when neces- 
sary, to supplement Alma Mater's instruction at some 
University abroad. For many years before the policy was 
actually introduced, he urged that (save when honorary) the 
degree of Master of Arts should be granted only after exam- 
ination. Upon such candidates as it could prepare for it, 
he wanted the University to confer the degree of Doctor of 
Philosophy ; and it is pleasant to remark that the two gen- 
tlemen who were the first to be crowned with this degree 



AS PRESIDENT OF BROWN UNIVERSITY. 275 

from Brown University, both now in prominent educational 
positions, bear diplomas signed by President Eobinson and 
received by them from his hands. 

Graduate and extension teaching owe in considerable part 
their present development at the University to President 
Robinson's example and encouragement. Professors Chace 
and Diman had long been accustomed to lecture before 
classes of intelligent people not members of the University; 
but such work received new impetus from a course of weekly 
lectures on philosophical subjects which Dr. Robinson deliv- 
ered in 1878-79 to a class gathered by Messrs. John H. Mason 
and Alfred G. Langley. This course was followed the next 
year (1879-80) by one, very popular and largely attended, on 
the History of Philosophy, for which careful reference lists 
were furnished by Mr. W. E. Foster, Librarian of the Provi- 
dence Public Library. During the same year (1879-80) 
several other members of the Faculty began to lecture in this 
general way, eacli delivering one or two lectures a winter. 
These lectures occurred evenings, and were open to citizens 
as well as to students. 

President Robinson's high record as an educational leader, 
like that which he made in the business control of the Uni- 
versity, sprang more from his powerful intellectual and 
moral personality, with the general influence which this 
exerted, than from any special skill, art, or policy character- 
izing his efforts. His vigorous thought and great personal 
influence never failed to impress any with whom he had to 
do. His success was the direct result of his great intellec- 
tual strength, which commanded admiration ; of his high 
moral character, which gained him respect; and of the essen- 
tial and far-reaching wisdom of his ideas, some of which 
were not at once accepted because enforced in a pugnacious 
rather than in a tactful way. 



276 EZEKIEL GILMAN ROBINSON. 

The Faculty with which President Robinson allied him- 
self on coming to Brown University was a very strong one, 
which it was no easy matter to lead. A number of its mem- 
bers had seen decades in the University's service, and as 
teachers and authors had won national reputation. Such 
men, and perhaps no less their younger colleagues, naturally 
had positive convictions touching the proper development 
of the University, with some of which the President could 
not sympathize. Dissidence of view not infrequently thus 
arose, sometimes, though rarely, generating friction. 

While the President's ideas in such cases were nearly 
always sound, tending to life and progress, and being 
opposed to mere routine, dead tradition, or pedantry ; yet 
they did not always prevail, and they often prevailed, when 
they did so, only against more or less protest. The cause of 
this has been already suggested. Himself conceiving 
clearly, in all its reasonableness, the good end sought, the 
President lacked the patience necessary to show such as had 
not considered it the desirableness of what he proposed; 
and if, therefore, his scheme proved unacceptable, instead 
of biding his time and setting to work to convert its oppo- 
nents one by one, he was too apt either to scold, thus defeat- 
ing his purpose, or to relinquish his purpose altogether, 
expecting others to bear the blame. It was largely in 
consequence of this habit that at the end of his presidency 
Dr. Robinson did not receive from his Faculty the support 
which every college president must need. It would not, 
however, be just to lay the responsibility for this entirely 
upon him. 

The President's writings contributed not a little to that 
personal influence of his which stood him in so good stead. 
His pupils wish that he had left more of his thoughts in 
permanent form; but he disliked to write, and was never 



AS PRESIDENT OF BROWN UNIVERSITY. 277 

satisfied with anything which he was induced to put down 
on paper. The matter which he did commit to print, else- 
where spoken of in detail, was of a high order, an honor to 
the University as well as to its author. 

With his students Dr. Robinson seems to have been less 
popular at Brown University than at Rochester. Spite 
of the generous aid which young men in college continually 
received from him, often out of his own pocket, and though 
not a few of his pupils were admitted to a warm and genial 
friendship with him which they will forever cherish as 
among the richest results of their life at college, the major- 
ity even of those under his immediate instruction regarded 
him more with awe than with affection. This was doubt- 
less due in part to the President's rather stern way of deal- 
ing with students. He was an autocrat, accustomed to 
command and to receive obedience. He seemed to feel it 
his duty to teach collegians subordination, and to hold them 
at some distance. His most enthusiastic college pupils 
agree that this habit greatly hindered his success in drawing 
ingenuous young men near to him in order to mould their 
thinking and purposes, in which, however, he grandly suc- 
ceeded with many. 

The habit likewise balked his efforts at discipline. He had 
slender natural aptitude for this duty, and had enjoyed no 
training for it. He expected in the students of Brown 
University the same docility and attention to duty which he 
had found in his theological pupils at Rochester. With 
boyish pranks he had no patience whatever, and was un- 
able to think of them as innocent. He was thus often surer 
of an accused student's guilt at first than the sifted facts 
warranted. Yet, terrible as he was in laying down the 
law, his heart was very tender. He could never withstand 
a mother's tears. In fact, he as often inflicted too light as 



278 EZEKIEL GILMAN ROBINSON. 

too heavy penalties for students' misdeeds ; and any hard 
sentence imposed by him was almost too sure to be mitigated 
on evidence of the culprit's deep penitence. It should be 
said, however, that President Eobinson encountered few, if 
any more difficulties in discipline than most college presi- 
dents had during the transition period in which his presi- 
dential service fell. Students had not yet learned that 
their own highest interests and greatest happiness lie in 
promoting the best college order. 

NOTE. 

ON IMPROVEMENTS AT BROWN. 

The following summary of the improvements secured for 
Brown University by President Robinson is from the Rev. Dr. 
T. D. Anderson's Memorial Address. — Ed. 

" The College showed greater material advance during the admin- 
istration of Dr. Robinson than at any other period of its history. 
The grounds were greatly improved. The front campus was trans- 
formed from a hayfield into an attractive lawn overshadowed by its 
beautiful elms ; the middle campus was graded, sodded, and paved ; 
and the field of athletic sports was transferred to the lower campus, 
which had arisen out of a swamp. The University came to be much 
better housed and equipped. Rhode Island Hall was extended ; Uni- 
versity Hall was renovated ; the Library, Sayles Memorial Hall, and 
Slater Hall were erected ; Wilson Hall was begun ; the Ladd Observa- 
tory was promised, and the money for the Lyman Gymnasium was in 
hand; and while this better equipment was secured, the funds of the 
College had been increased, speaking in round numbers, from $550,000 
to $1,000,000. When we reflect that all this was done in spite of the 
President's confessed lack of tact in dealing with men, and in face of 
obstructions raised by a divided Corporation, we find in these gratify- 
ing results abundant evidence of the persistent purpose and unflinch- 
ing fidelity of the President, and a substantial expression of the 
respect and confidence which his abilities and character inspired in 
the community at large." 



VIII. 

DR. ROBINSON AS A TEACHER OF 
PHILOSOPHY. 



BY ALFRED G. LANGLEY, A.M. 



VIII. 

AS A TEACHER OF PHILOSOPHY. 

PRESIDENT PtOBLNSON was Professor of Intellectual 
and Moral Philosophy in Brown University from 
1872 to 1889. During this entire period he gave instruction 
to the Senior class throughout the year, — the first term in 
Psychology and Ontology, the second term in Ethics. 
Near the close of each academic year he added a few less 
formal lectures on the outlines of Natural Theology and the 
Evidences of Christianity. Beginning with the session of 
1879-80, he gave, during the second term each year, a course 
of one hour weekly in tshe History of Philosophy as an 
elective, making it a two-hour course in 1888-89. In 
addition to these courses he gave, by request, in 1878-79, 
a weekly course of nineteen lectures " on some of the more 
difficult and controverted questions in Metaphysics and 
Ethics, " including five lectures on " The Philosophy of the 
Atonement, " to a class composed of a number of recent 
graduates and others interested in these topics, and attended 
by a considerable number of ladies and gentlemen, not 
regular members, who by their presence manifested their 
interest in and their indorsement of what may be termed 
the beginning of graduate instruction in the University. 
An immediate outgrowth of this course was the series of 
sixteen public lectures to graduates and others on the His- 
tory of Modern Philosophy delivered the next year (1879-80) 
in Manning Hall before large and interested audiences, which 
were very instructive and successful. 



282 EZEKIEL GILMAN ROBINSON. 

While President and Professor at Brown, Dr. Eobinson 
gave a series of lectures on " The Eelations of Philosophic to 
Christian Ethics" at Boston University in 1877-78, and 
afterwards repeated the course in Philadelphia, as the 
" Samuel A. Crozer Lectures, " for 1883, before the Crozer 
Theological Seminary, with the title " The Eelation of 
Christianity to Ethics." 1 Early in 1879 he lectured at 
the Newton Theological Institution on Homiletics, — 
the professorship in that department being vacant, — accom- 
panying the lectures with private work in the construction 
and criticism of sermons. In January and February, 1882, 
he delivered the " Lectures on Preaching" to the Students of 
Theology at Yale College. In 1883 he gave a course of 
twenty lectures on Theology at the Andover Theological 
Seminary. These lectures, as being either philosophical 
in character or in the method of treating their subject, or 
both, deserve here passing mentien as, in the broader sense 
of the term, a part of his philosophical instruction. 

The ground covered by the Senior course throughout his 
professorship can best be given in the words of Dr. Eobinson 
himself, in his Annual Eeport to the Corporation, June 

1 Of the lectures given at Boston University President Warren writes : 
" Despite the pressure of his daily duties in Providence, the necessity of 
journeying daily to and from the city, he carried his elaborate critical review 
of historic men and systems and periods from stage to stage with admirable 
clearness of thought and charm of expression. As a specimen of attainable 
possibilities in the line of extemporaneous exposition I think I never saw it 
surpassed, unless it was in the ancient church of St. Mary's at Oxford, when 
in 1887 I listened to the Bishop of Ripon (a) as he delivered his course of 
Bampton lectures without having written a single page in advance. 

"President Robinson well deserves the crown which loyal disciples and 
admiring friends are weaving for him. The undersigned desires to be 
counted among those who revered and loved him." — A. G. L. 



{a) Rt. Rev. William Boyd Carpenter, D.D., D. C. L. The Bampton Lec- 
tures are entitled "The Permanent Elements of Religion." — A. G. L. 



AS A TEACHER OF PHILOSOPHY. 283 

26, 1873, page 19 : " In Intellectual Philosophy the atten- 
tion of the class was directed to so much of psychology as 
pertains to the science of mind, and to the fundamental 
principles of ontology, or metaphysics proper; in Moral 
Philosophy, special attention was given to theoretic ethics 
and to those questions which underlie the whole science of 
morals, though practical ethics were not overlooked. " The 
usual method of instruction was the lecture, " in which brief 
but comprehensive statements of principles were dictated 
and accompanied with explanations and illustrations, which 
the class were at liberty to take in their own way, but 
which all were required to retain so far as was necessary to 
a full exposition and recitation of what had been dictated. " 

Dr. Robinson's dictations were prepared with very great 
care. The matter had been thoroughly thought out, and 
was expressed with the utmost clearness, in a style exceed- 
ingly terse, forcible, and compact, in which it may, perhaps, 
be said without exaggeration that there was scarcely a single 
word that was superfluous or that could be dispensed with 
without essentially marring or vitiating the thought. These 
lectures of Dr. Eobinson to his classes in Brown University 
are a model in every respect of what a lecturer's syllabus or 
notes for class use, whether dictated or in type, should be. 
Any one who will carefully read his lectures in Ethics, 
published under the title of " Principles and Practice of 
Morality, " will find the above statement no exaggeration. 

The character of the work done may, perhaps, best be 
seen by a description of an average class-room exercise. 
The Doctor usually began at once with the remark : " Any 
questions, gentlemen ? " Then often questions were asked, 
and there followed a very earnest discussion of the points 
at issue between the professor and the students. The sparks 
flew, and the intellects of the students participating in the 



284 EZEKIEL GILMAN ROBINSON. 

discussion were aroused and stimulated into such action as 
till then they had never known or even dreamed of ; while 
those who merely watched the contest could not but get 
their share of the intellectual awakening and life. The 
student had to strike out for himself and defend his posi- 
tions, or go to the wall. The weaker ones fell. Some were 
too timid to try it again, and some too timid to try it at all ; 
but those who realized and appreciated their opportunities, 
and braced themselves for the encounter, reaped the price- 
less advantages and permanent increase of power which 
resulted therefrom. 

But although at Providence in Philosophy, as previously 
at Eochester in Theology, discussion with the students 
formed a distinct and very important feature of his instruc- 
tion, it could not be so prominent a feature or so fruitful in 
results in the University as in the Seminary. The students 
were much younger, their minds less mature, their knowl- 
edge more limited, and their capacity for participating 
in and deriving benefit from such discussion correspond- 
ingly less. Furthermore, the students in theology were 
almost all intending to devote themselves to the work of 
the ministry, or to teaching involving the knowledge and 
use of the study they were pursuing. The students in 
philosophy, on the other hand, were, many of them, tak- 
ing the course simply as a part of the required work of the 
college curriculum, with no prospect of using the knowl- 
edge gained therein or desire for the same, and in many 
cases with a positive dislike, if not a total want of capacity, 
for the subject. The Doctor found it difficult — as he told 
the writer some years after he had passed out from his in- 
struction — to adapt himself to these younger and less 
mature minds, many of whom were just beginning to 
think at all, and especially on such subjects as the 



AS A TEACHER OF PHILOSOPHY. 285 

lectures in Philosophy discussed. Notwithstanding all 
this, there was, during at least the first two-thirds of his 
professorship, a good deal of discussion, and profitable dis- 
cussion too. The Doctor was not only always ready for it 
and welcomed it, but sometimes, especially if the men 
seemed indisposed or reluctant to enter into it, put forth 
considerable and varied effort to induce them to participate. 
The very positive, and at times seemingly dogmatic, manner 
in which he set forth and argued for the positions he 
advanced, challenged the better and more earnest men to 
the combat. At times he made statements in a form which 
seemed designed to provoke dissent and awaken discussion. 

But, according to the competent and trustworthy testi- 
mony of some of his best students, discussion gradually fell 
off during the last four or five years of his professorship, till 
there was scarcely any whatever, and his teaching became 
" increasingly and extremely dogmatic. " This absence of 
discussion is so strange, and so #unlike anything known of 
him by those who were acquainted with the splendid work 
in this direction of his earlier years at Brown, and previously 
at Eochester, and so seemingly contrary to all his theories 
of education and to his hitherto uniform practice, as to 
demand some explanation, if we are to attain a just and 
adequately appreciative account and estimate of his work. 
The youth and mental immaturity of many of the students, 
and his own difficulty in adapting himself thereto; the 
presence of men in the class-room having little or no in- 
terest in the subject or particular capacity for it; the 
indifference of these and others to discussion and criticism, 
and their unwillingness to participate therein; the irrele- 
vancy and comparative superficiality of much that was said 
by honest, well-meaning, and even able students ; the grow- 
ing strength and positiveness of his own convictions, each 



286 EZEKIEL GILMAN ROBINSON. 

and all may have had — doubtless did have — their influence 
in bringing about and continuing the change in question ; 
yet the true explanation seems rather to lie in the con- 
siderations herewith following. Throughout his professor- 
ship, and especially during the last four or five years, Dr. 
Bobinson was burdened with an immense amount of con- 
stantly increasing administrative detail, which helped to 
exhaust the vitality so essential to enthusiastic teaching, 
and, to one of his nature and temperament, became more and 
more irritating, the more so as much of the work might just 
as well have been done by any ordinarily competent person, 
leaving him free to give the bulk of his energies to the 
work of instruction and the more important matters of 
administration. He had, furthermore, throughout his 
presidency, in all his efforts to advance the College, to 
contend with adverse conditions and forces that never 
should have existed, and with a corporation too many of 
whose members were altogether too inert, ultra-conserva- 
tive, short-sighted, narrow-minded, and slow, 1 — difficulties 
still further aggravated by his own lack of tact in advocat- 
ing and carrying out his plans. All this seems to have 
reacted upon him to an extent sufficient to affect, though 
no doubt unconsciously, his teaching. He grew increas- 

1 The statement in the text is strictly true, and is made solely in a spirit of 
justice and fairness to Dr. Robinson, with no reflection whatever on the 
motives of those who for any reason opposed his vigorously progressive 
plans. Dr. Robinson has been criticised with considerable severity for not 
accomplishing more in the development of Brown than he did. The plain 
fact is that he was as' wide-awake, far-sighted, and progressive a president as 
teacher, and indisputably far too radical and progressive for a large number 
of the Corporation as well as of the Faculty of the University. His Annual 
Reports to the Corporation furnish abundant and convincing evidence of the 
truth of this statement, and should be carefully and thoughtfully read by 
any and all who desire to get any adequate idea of his educational and 
administrative views. They contain succinct and valuable discussions of 
almost all questions affecting higher education in our day. — A. G. L. 



AS A TEACHER OF PHILOSOPHY. 



287 



ingly weary of the long and hard struggle to push the 
University forward to the position he knew it ought and 
must take, if it was to hold its own and advance to its 
rightful place and influence among the institutions of our 
land; and this weariness showed itself in an increasing 
irritability at any manifestation of criticism or opposition 
in the class-room. 

Finally, there were personal trials and worries adding 
their weight to the already overtaxed and weary life ; but 
the nature, brave and strong and self-respecting, kept them 
to itself, and bore them in the secret and silence of its 

own depths. 

But to return to our description. Sometimes the discus- 
sion took the whole hour, so fierce was the struggle, or so 
important, fundamental, and far-reaching the subject under 
discussion. After the discussion came the recitation, 
which the Doctor almost always had, if there was suffi- 
cient matter on hand, and on which he laid great stress. 
Recitation in his presence was no mere formal repetition of 
so much memorized lecture. The men must know what 
they were saying, and the Professor was quick to discern 
whether they did or did not know. He was wide-awake, 
alert, and let no statement pass unchallenged. The student 
reciting was met at every turn with question after question 
going right to the heart of the subject, and sifting and test- 
ing thoroughly his knowledge of it. He was made to real- 
ize" his knowledge or his ignorance. Even when the 
statements made were wholly correct, the Doctor would 
often require the student to explain and justify them in 
his own way, in order to be sure that he had mastered 
them, and to make the student himself aware of that 
mastery. He would occasionally help a student whom he 
had good reason to suppose was honestly and earnestly 



288 EZEKIEL GILMAN EOBINSON". 

trying to do the work to the best of his ability; but he 
was by no means like his contemporary, Dr. Porter of 
Yale, of whom it is said that he would never, if he could 
help it, allow a man to fail in class, making his questions 
easier and easier until the student could not help answering 
them. A careless, superficial, slovenly recitation called 
forth at once a sharp and stinging rebuke or withering sar- 
casm, which the student did not forget, even if he did not 
profit by it ; and sometimes, though perhaps more rarely, a 
serious, sober, and kindly reproof, designed to remind the 
student that he was wasting his opportunities, and of the 
sad and irreparable loss that must inevitably follow such 
misuse of time and powers. In every possible way he put 
men on their mettle, compelled them to think, and to bring 
out and develop all that was in them. 

After the recitation, which also very frequently included 
more or less discussion, came the dictation of the new 
matter forming the next portion of the course, accompanied 
with the necessary exposition and illustration. Here, as 
always, the Doctor's expositions were brief, logical, and to 
the point, " his explanations of the most profound things 
extremely childlike and simple," and his illustrations, 
drawn from every available source, — science, literature, 1 
history, and life, — often homely but fresh, apt, and forci- 
ble, illuminating the truth and fixing it in the mind forever. 

1 Dr. Robinson in his earlier student days, especially at Newton, devoted 
a large amount of time to a systematic reading and study of literature. 
Occasionally in class and frequently in private conversation he spoke of 
Certain authors as especially worthy of careful reading and study. In his 
later years most of his reading of literature was done in the long summer 
vacation. Then, as he once told me, he gave himself up to the reading of 
novels and other forms of literature for which he had no leisure in term time. 
His method of reading, like all his work, was critical. He noted everything 
about an author, — his subject and manner of treating it, plot, characteriza- 
tions, style, general attitude towards all the problems he touched or hinted 
at, methods of reasoning, explicit or implied. — A. G. L. 



AS A TEACHER OF PHILOSOPHY. 289 

With one class he sought to provide for debate 1 in his 
own presence; but the experiment was a failure. 

Incidentally, in his Senior required courses, Dr. Eobinson 
gave, throughout his professorship, more or less on the His- 
tory of Philosophy by way of exposition and illustration. 
What was here done incidentally was done in a more sys- 
tematic and extended manner in the elective in the History 
of Philosophy, given each year from 1879-80 to the close 
of his connection with the University. The course cov- 
ered in very brief outline the chief names and systems in 
modern philosophy, usually beginning with Descartes and 
extending to Kant, and one year (1888-89) to Hegel. For 
the three years (1886-89) the course also included the His- 
tory of Greek as well as of Modern Philosophy. He had a 
very remarkable and extraordinary, almost preternatural, 

1 In his Annual Report to the Corporation, June 22, 1882, pages 6-7, Dr. 
Eobinson thus speaks of college debate : " It has often been the subject of 
remark and regret among thoughtful men, who are familiar with the existing 
interior life of our older American colleges, that so. little attention is now 
given by students to voluntary and systematic practice in extemporaneous 
debate. The old debating societies that forty years ago were so prominent a 
feature in college life, have now very generally ceased to exist. They have 
given place to numerous smaller associations, consisting of numbers insuffi- 
cient to arouse the interest and enthusiasm necessary to such results from the 
practice in debate as used to be attained in the older and now extinct 
societies. That the young men of liberal education, who are now entering 
public life, show far less skill in extemporaneous speech than their fathers 
possessed at the same age, is frequently remarked. . . . Among a people 
living under a free government like ours, the value of such training to our 
educated men can hardly be overestimated. That would be a grievous mis- 
take in the education of the American college, if ever, in a blind imitation of 
universities that work under other forms of government, the neglect of prac- 
tice in debate, now so general, should become established and universal. 
If the educated men of our country would fit themselves for the kind of 
leadership in our legislative assemblies, state and national, to which their 
education should entitle them, we should hear far less than we do now of 
lament over the indisposition of the educated classes to participate in the 
political affairs of the nation. The training that is to fit one for public life 
should begin not later than his college days." — A. G. L. 

19 



290 EZEKIEL GILMAN ROBINSON. 

insight into truth and into the heart of the various systems, 
a firm grasp of their essential features and fundamental 
principles, and an almost equally rare power to set them 
forth in a wonderfully clear, forcible, and often elegant 
manner. He had always been interested in philosophy and 
its history, — a fact evidenced among other ways by his 
library, which was largely philosophical, — and at some 
time in his life made a careful study of the chief periods 
and systems. It should be remembered that he did all the 
work in philosophy done in his time, constantly increasing 
its amount throughout his professorship, — work that is 
now distributed among four professors. To him more than 
to any one is it due that Brown University does in Phi- 
losophy the noble work she does to-day. 

In his graduate work Dr. Eobinson followed his old-time 
method of freest and absolutely fearless criticism and 
amplest discussion. 2 The following account of it, together 
with some reference to the undergraduate work as he knew 
it, has been kindly furnished by Eev. A. K. DeBlois, Ph. D. , 
President of Shurtleff College, Upper Alton, Illinois : — 

1 Regarding the work at Chicago, Professor George S. Goodspeed, Brown, 
1880, in response to my inquiry, writes : "It appears that Dr. Rohinson's 
custom in the work in Ethics at Chicago was to assign a section in his book 
' Principles and Practice of Morality,' for recitation. Ordinarily the recita- 
tion of this took fifteen minutes. Then the door was thrown wide open for 
discussion. The utmost freedom was allowed, and all sorts of objections, 
arguments, suggestions, received a fair hearing; only prolixity and irrele- 
vancy being mercilessly choked off, 

" My informant tells me that it was a most stimulating exercise ; the 
Doctor was full of electricity, and the sparks and shocks were frequent. The 
students were above the average in maturity aud ability, drawn as they were 
from all departments of the University. They called forth Dr. Robinson's 
best, and he gave it in full measure. He seemed to enjoy the hour to the 
utmost. 

"I was not able to get any special incidents which would illustrate the 
methods and characteristics of Dr. Robinson ; but it was perfectly clear that 
he had gone back to his earlier method of which you wrote." — A. G. L. 



AS A TEACHER OF PHILOSOPHY. 291 

" I spent two years in resident graduate study at Brown 
University, and one year in non-resident study, while I was 
taking my Junior year in the Newton Theological Seminary. 
These were the last three years of Dr. Robinson's presidency 
at Brown. During my first year of residence at the Univer- 
sity I attended the classes in Psychology and History of 
Philosophy, which he had with the Seniors in the under- 
graduate department, and I also did special work in Psy- 
chology, Ethics, the History of Philosophy, and the 
Philosophy of Religion, meeting Dr. Robinson for recita- 
tion and examination on the work pursued. Usually he 
assigned me some author or authors to read during the 
week, and on Saturday evening I took tea with him at his 
home, and after tea we adjourned to his library, where he 
gave me a thorough examination on the work which I had 
pursued during the week. As soon as we were seated in the 
library, he would turn to me and say, in his decided tone, 
' Well ! what have you done since we last met? ' I would 
then plunge in medias res, and give in as succinct a manner 
as possible a review of the authors which I had read, em- 
phasizing their special characteristics and the noteworthy 
features of their work, explaining, criticising, and at the 
conclusion giving a rapid survey and summary. This was 
not altogether plain sailing. Dr. Robinson would sweep 
down upon me again and again in the most abrupt manner, 
requiring me to outline some theory which I had stated, 
demanding an explanation of some statement which I had 
made, gathering up what I had said into some general truth, 
or asking of me an original criticism of some minor point 
in the discussion. These interruptions coming unexpec- 
tedly, and in a stern and commanding voice, did not serve 
to increase my repose of manner, although they were 
undoubtedly helpful from a disciplinary point of view. 



292 EZEKIEL GILMAN EOBINSON. 

Dr. Eobinson would often break in with some broad and 
brilliant criticism of his own, and would explain and 
illustrate his issue clearly and forcibly. 

" I never found out whether or not Dr. Eobinson had a 
system of his own. He was keen, thorough, earnest, sug- 
gestive, and stimulating, but in all my work with him I 
felt that there was a lack of positively constructive prin- 
ciples. As we went on week by week and month by month 
examining author after author and philosophy after phi- 
losophy, I wondered when the time would come in which 
the Doctor would build a system of his own, or outline the 
system which he had already built. I must confess that I 
was disappointed when, at the close of my period of study, 
no fair system rose to greet my anxious vision. The genius 
of the teacher had discovered the flaws and faults of all 
other systems, but had failed to bring forth a system of 
its own. In a general way, and emphatically, he was a 
realist; but of his special views and opinions, as parts of 
a complete system, I was always in ignorance. Although 
his students were compelled to seek elsewhere the positive 
system that they desired, or manufacture a system for them- 
selves, the inspiration and power which they could not fail 
to receive from listening to the words of Dr. Eobinson 
became a permanent possession of their lives. In the 
department of Ethics the full force and value of the 
Doctor's teaching were most clearly seen. Although here 
also his method was destructive rather than constructive, 
all the fundamental principles were outlined with a reso- 
luteness, freedom, and independence which were admirable. 
No one could go from his class-room in Moral Philosophy 
without feeling the grandeur and beauty of the teachings 
which had been set forth. During my first year at the 
University I took the elective course in the History of 



AS A TEACHER OF PHILOSOPHY. 293 

Philosophy. About eight of the students, all Seniors, 
were in the class. During the first half of the term we 
used Zeller's History of Greek Philosophy as a text-book. 
The Doctor supplemented the text with lectures of his own. 
These were delivered extempore, and I think impromptu, 
and the students took what notes they could get. In 
the last half of the term we used no text-book, but took 
notes at the Doctor's dictation. Here, as always, a rigid 
adherence to ' the letter of the law' was required. In the' 
regular class-room work I never knew Dr. Eobinson to be 
otherwise than extremely positive in statement. His views, 
and especially his criticisms, although rationally grounded in 
all cases, were uttered with an emphasis that debarred ques- 
tion. There was no free discussion, and the student who 
offered suggestions or criticisms of his own was made to 
feel that it would have been far better for him to have kept 
silence. This was very different from his method in the 
private work which I took with him. In the latter he 
invited original criticism ; in the former he seemed anxious 
to avoid it. I considered that all of his teaching was help- 
ful. He seemed to understand thoroughly what he was 
teaching. In the History of Philosophy he concerned 
himself with general outline rather than with detail. It 
seemed to me that he had at some time made a minute and 
comprehensive study of the various systems, and had 
embodied the results of his inquiries in certain sweeping 
yet clearly defined criticisms and estimates. The details 
and the minutiae dropped out of his memory, but the 
results remained. 

" At the same time he never seemed to be behind the age. 
He quoted constantly from the most recent works, and was 
familiar with the latest drift of thought. There was a 
freshness and vigor about him that was indescribable. He 



294 EZEKIEL GILMAN EOBINSOK 

was always alert, always strong, always clear and forcible. 
His stern personality, his fearless denunciation of all forms 
of error, and his logical habit of mind gave a stimulus to 
my intellectual life which has been far-reaching in its 
effects. The influence which he exerted upon me, and the 
inspiration which I received from my association with him, 
I appreciate more and more fully as the years go by. Over 
the tea-table and in private life the naturally rigid and 
rugged disposition of the man relaxed into a kindness 
which was delightful. I respected him as a teacher, and, 
as time went on, I came to honor and to love him as a man 
of true and wonderful nobility of character. At the same 
time the glimpses I got of the inner life of the man inten- 
sified the admiration which I already had for the great 
teacher. He was not a favorite with the students, and I 
think became less and less popular toward the close of his 
administration. I believe that there was a change in this 
respect after he left Brown. Although few of the students 
loved him with a personal affection when I was at the 
University, there was hardly one, I think, who did not 
revere him as a prince among teachers and a hero amongst 
men. " 

Of the philosophy he taught it is impossible here to give 
a detailed account and criticism. The account here pre- 
sented gives the more attention to his Psychology, chiefly 
because it represents, so far as may be, the philosophical 
foundation of his ethical and theological views, and thus of 
the entire character and influence of his instruction. It 
would perhaps be more accurate to designate his course in 
accord with the title of his professorship, with the general 
custom of the time and with his own co-ordinate usage, by 
the old name Intellectual Philosophy. Though endeavor- 



AS A TEACHER OF PHILOSOPHY. 295 

ing to cover the entire field in outline, lie chiefly concerned 
himself with the problem of knowledge, 1 — Erkenntnisslehre, 

1 Consciousness, which he regarded as one of the most important and 
vital topics in Psychology and on which he laid especial stress, because of its 
philosophical importance as the immediate source and ultimate ground of our 
knowledge of the individual self and of its existence, and as the sphere iu 
which all truth must vindicate itself as such before it can be accepted as the 
ideal and controlling force in life, he thus sets forth : " It cannot be correct to 
define consciousness as ' the soul's knowing that it knows,' or 'the power by 
which the soul knows its own acts and states,' or ' the power to know that it is 
itself that knows.' But consciousness is rather the soul's actual knowing 
with itself that it knows ; that is, is that relation to itself into which the ego is 
brought by cognition of any object other than itself, is the ego as subject 
communing with itself as object through the mediation of some object dis- 
tinct from itself. It is not a power of the soul, but is a state, a condition, 
a function of the soul which always necessarily accompanies any normal or 
voluntary exercise of the soul's powers. Speaking figuratively and popu- 
larly, it is the mind's illumination of itself by its own action. . . . 

" When we make consciousness an object of attention and analyze it into 
its component parts, we find it always to consist of three distinguishable 
elements : namely, the ego cognizing, the object cognized, and the communion 
of the ego with itself in the cognitive act; that is, we find the soul commun- 
ing with itself in the act of knowing something which is not itself. But 
these three elements when themselves analyzed reveal the existence of but 
two distinct quantities or entities, the ego and the object of its knowledge. 
Out of these two factors, subject and object, carefully analyzed, come directly 
or indirectly the entire materials of mental philosophy." 

The doctrine concerning perception is as follows : Perception is " the 
mind's act of apprehending, cognizing, knowing external objects." . . . 
From a " brief survey of what are called the five senses there seem good 
reasons for believing that neither one of them by itself alone gives us direct 
knowledge of an external world. Each one gives us a direct sense-perception 
of the bodily organism as extended and as distinct from the perceiving 
ego, but it is not certain that it gives us anything further. That the five 
special senses combined may give it, is possible ; that it is given through 
the five senses as aided and directed by the sense of muscular resistance 
obtained through exercise of the locomotive energy, there is no good reason 
to doubt. . . . 

" It is agreed among philosophers that our knowledge of what is in the 
mind is immediate and indubitable, but how we can be assured that the 
external world of things is as we apprehend it or imagine it to be, is a matter 
of persistent dispute. . . . 

"The following statements may be regarded as safely made : — 

" (a) As the initial of perception is at the instant that sensation is local- 



296 EZEKIEL GILMAN KOBINSOK 

— its processes and results, and their validity as against 
Agnosticism or the Philosophy of Nescience, maintaining 
the reality and trustworthiness of our limited knowledge 

ized as an affection of the bodily organism, so this localization is a perception 
of the bodily organism as something distinct from the ego that perceives it. 

"(b) This initial or primary perception is related to sensation, not as a 
natural physical sequent, an effect of which sensation is the cause, nor yet is 
it an inference which the mind draws from sensation as a precedent fact ; that 
is, there is no interval of time between the sensation and the perception, but 
the perception is an immediate apprehension or knowledge of sensation as an 
existing affection of the organism, and the perception continues only while 
the sensation lasts. The sensation exists for the ego only while the ego 
perceives it, and the ego perceives it only while it exists. 

" (c) This sensation, while giving us primarily only a perception of the 
affected bodily organism, yet in giving it enables the ego to come into direct 
and immediate cognitive relation to the external object by which the sensa- 
tion is caused. The ego perceives the object immediately in the sensations 
received from it. Whatever may be the agency or the process through which 
a knowledge of externality is first obtained, — whether each sense organ can 
give it, or whether two or more combined give it, or whether first given by 
muscular resistance obtained by locomotion, — one thing is certain, and that is, 
that contactual relation of healthy sense organs to external objects gives to 
the mind an immediate or intuitive and assured perception of them as exter- 
nal and real. To what extent, if at all, the mind is helped in this by its rec- 
ognition of the principle of causation, or whether the perceiving ego directly 
intuits in and through the sensation the object causing the sensation, it may 
not be easy to say. Whatever the process may be, the ego is incapable of 
practical doubt that external objects are immediately apprehended, and that 
they are just what they are by all men apprehended to be. 

" (d) If to these statements it be objected that the qualities of the material 
objects perceived and the attributes of the soul that perceives are so totally 
dissimilar that there can be no resemblance whatever between material 
objects and our ideas of them; that the ego as spirit, though capable of 
immediately cognizing itself and its processes, cannot immediately cognize 
matter, — it must be replied that man as conscious and cognitive is physico- 
psychical, that he is botli spiritual and material, that he is in fact a tangen- 
tial point between the two realms of matter and spirit, and as such is capable 
of cognizing at once the attributes of spirit and the qualities of matter. The 
methods by which external objects are cognized may differ widely in kind 
from the method of self-cognizing, and the ideas formed in either case may 
have no resemblance whatever to the objects themselves, may differ as widely 
as the qualities of matter differ from the attributes of spirit, and yet the per- 
ceptions, the actual cognitions, in both cases be equally decisive and com- 
plete."— Lectures on Psychology, MS., §§ 23-28, ed. 1884. 



AS A TEACHER OF PHILOSOPHY. 297 

and its continual and progressive growth and expansion; 
and with the vindication of an idealistic realism as against 
the widely prevalent materialism of the day, maintaining 
the existence of the soul or spirit as superior to and 
underived from matter and essentially distinct therefrom, 
itself weaving continually its body from the material ele- 
ments of its environment, and leaving these again to depart 
to their own place and conditions when the soul or spirit 
has no further use for them. 

The Lectures on Psychology always keep in mind the 
bearing and significance of modern physical and physio- 
logical science in its relations to the science of mind; and 
the statements of principles and the argumentation in sup- 
port of them always shape themselves in view of the ascer- 
tained and proved facts, as well as the mere theories of 
modern scientific investigation. Dr. Robinson, as a teacher 
of Theology, was the first in this country fully to appreciate 
and take account of physical science in its relations to 
theology, and as a teacher of Philosophy he manifested the 
same sense of its importance as a modifying factor in the 
formation of the concepts, and in shaping the methods 
and argumentation of Psychology and Ethics. " Physical 
science, " he said, " is knocking down many an old crockery 
god ! " His philosophical instruction in this, as in other 
respects, was thoroughly abreast of the times, progressive, 
and with a very definite and positive outlook towards the 
future. His classes were made familiar with the English 
Associational and Physiological Schools and with psychology 
as treated by them from the side of physiology; and his 
lectures and discussions took account of all real contribu- 
tions to the science from their investigations, while at the 
same time subjecting to merciless and generally successful 
criticism their arbitrary assumptions or hasty and inade- 



298 EZEKTEL GILMAN ROBINSON. 

quate inferences and generalizations. There was also con- 
siderably frequent reference to German thought, especially 
to Kant and his followers down to and including Schopen- 
hauer and Von Hartmann ; and in general the latest views 
and theories of all schools received as much consideration 
in the expositions and discussions of the class-room as time 
and other circumstances allowed. That he did nothing with 
the so-called " Physiological Psychology, " " New Psy- 
chology, " or, more properly speaking, Psychology as an 
experimental science, is explained and justified by the fact 
that, at the time he was nearing the end of his work as 
Professor of Philosophy, the subject in this form was but 
just coming into prominence, and investigation just begin- 
ning to any extent in this country in the direction in which 
now nearly all the work is done. 1 

Dr. Eobinson was in general an intuitionalist and a 
realist. He was an intuitionalist in his view of con- 
sciousness as the final source of appeal, and as the sphere 
in which all truth must and does vindicate itself as such 
by its own inherent self -evidencing power. To this self- 
evidencing power and consequent authority of truth, con- 
sciousness at once responds. He was a realist in his 

1 The first Psychological Laboratory was established by Wundt in Ger- 
many in 1879. The first American Psychological Laboratory was founded 
by G. Stanley Hall at Johns Hopkins University in 1881, and existed five 
years. A second period of activity opened in 1888 in the founding of the 
three laboratories at the Universities of Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and 
Indiana, followed by three more in 1 889, the year which marked the close of 
Dr. Robinson's professorship at Brown. After this time laboratories multi- 
plied quite rapidly, until in 1895 there are more of them iu this country than 
in Europe. The laboratory at Brown University was founded by Professor 
E. B. Delabarre in April, 1892. The "American Journal of Psychology" 
dates from 1887. Cf. an article by Professor Delabarre of Brown' University 
in "L'Annee Psychologique," 1894, pp. 209-255. Eor more detailed account 
cf. Baldwin, " Pyschology, Past and Present," in the " Psychological Review," 
vol. i. p. 364. — A. G. L. 



AS A TEACHER OF PHILOSOPHY 299 

doctrine of perception and knowledge, in his doctrine of the 
relation of the concept to reality, and in his doctrine of the 
intuitions. In reply to a question from some member of 
the class of 1876, as to which of the three views — realism, 
nominalism, and conceptualism — he thought the true one, 
he said : " There is a root of truth in old realism. Nom- 
inalism throws two or three pebble-stones into the cog- 
wheel of thought which continually make some cracking." 1 
Of the intuitions as related to realities, he said : " We prefer 
to regard all our really intuitive ideas as springing from an 
immediate beholding of realities, — realities our knowledge 
of which is as trustworthy as that which we obtain of the 

1 That phase of realism which held so important a place in Dr. Bohin- 
son's theology, especially in his theories of depravity and atonement, and 
which used to be the theme of pressing inquiries in his lecture-room, received 
from him at Brown a more explicit statement than he gave to it while at 
the Seminary. This statement is furnished by Mr. Langley, and is offered 
to the students of Dr. Robinson's theology as, with the possible exception of 
his kindred idea of law, the most significant and fruitful of the doctrines which 
he derived from any other immediate source than the Bible. — Ed. 

" Modified by modern thought and by new theories in physical science, 
the question of realism and nominalism is being revived under new forms. 
To a modern intellect the theory that all concepts are representative of 
universal realities seems absurd ; but that they are all merely arbitrary 
names of what has only an individual existence, or of what has only a mental 
existence, the later teaching of physical science will hardly justify us in 
believing. 

" Extreme positivists, in imitation of Comte, who, like Hobbes, explicitly 
affirms the theory of nominalism, are ultra-nominalists. But evolutionists 
who recognize a directive and moulding power, a jdastic force, a vis vivida 
which inheres in and works in and through typical forms, if logically con- 
sistent, must also recognize a somewhat that underlies and runs through and 
determines every individual of the type. That plastic power or somewhat is 
the same in each and all of the class to which it belongs, and each and all alike 
partake of it. A common participation in this somewhat necessitates a kind 
of theory of realism. 

"That the concept cannot be conceived or made real to the mind except in 
an individual is indisputable, but that concepts representing such classes of 
objects or attributes of objects as are endowed with an inherent power of self- 
perpetuation do represent universals of essence, there seems to be no good 
reason for doubting." — Lectures on Psychology, MS., § 40, ed. 1884. 



300 EZEKIEL GILMAN ROBINSON. 

external world through use of our senses (Lectures on Psy- 
chology, MS. , § 44, ed. 1884). Knowledge he " proximately, 
though very imperfectly, defined as a conscious apprehension 
of relation and distinction between self and a somewhat that 
is not self, a conscious communion of self with some object 
distinguishable from self as cognizing. . . . The knowledge 
of objects in the material external world comes through the 
phenomenal reports they make of themselves by sensation in 
consciousness. The personal ego that knows these objects 
comes through use of the bodily sense organs into direct and 
immediate relation to them, and thus knows them directly 
and immediately in the sensations as material objects ; but 
it is spirit knowing matter, and knowing it only through 
the medium of the bodily organism. This knowledge differs 
in kind, if not in degree, from that which we have of our- 
selves and of other beings. " 

" Opposed to the Kantian-Hamiltonian view of knowledge," 
— which, " in the hands of Herbert Spencer, becomes 
agnosticism (philosophy of nescience)," — "it is main- 
tained that the phenomenal and the noumenal, qualities 
and essence, are not separable in fact if they be in thought ; 
that the notion of a somewhat that cannot appear, that has 
no qualities and sustains no relations, is self-contradictory ; 
that the very idea of phenomenon is that a somewhat and a 
real object appear, and that the appearance is a veritable and 
reliable revelation of both reality and essence. " 

Dr. Eobinson's greatest omission in Psychology, as in 
Ethics, was a discussion of the sensibility. He discussed 
the subject, it is true, briefly and incidentally in his Ethics, 
where x he gave his reasons for the omission, which was con- 
scious and purposive, of a full and separate treatment ; but 
frum the point of view of system it was a defect. In Psy- 

1 Cf. Principles and Practice of Morality, pp. 19-21. 



AS A TEACHER OF PHILOSOPHY. 301 

chology the omission was probably due, in addition to the 
reasons given in the Ethics, to the fact that the problem of 
knowledge seemed to him the most important and vital, 
and, the time at his disposal being limited, this problem, 
therefore, claimed his chief attention. 

Towards the latter part of his professorship the classes 
began to manifest a lessening interest in his instruction in 
Psychology. This in the case of the best men was at 
bottom probably due to the growing sense and conviction 
of the need of a more thorough and minute study of details 
before we have scientific warrant for affirming any positions 
or doctrines, even though the positions or doctrines affirmed 
and taught were on the whole correct. The feeling itself, 
though a part of the current movement of thought, was in 
his classes largely caused by and greatly intensified and 
furthered by his own critical spirit and method. Some one 
has said that " philosophy is psychology, and psychology is a 
question. " The statement is to a certain extent true, and 
no one felt its truth more deeply than Dr. Robinson. He 
recognized the importance and value of the modern methods 
of experimental research and study, and the bearing of their 
results on the dark problems of the science of mind. He 
often alluded to the work needing to be done, and the aid 
that we might legitimately expect therefrom in the clearer 
understanding and statement, if not the solution, of these 
problems. He always looked forward to the future, and 
fully believed that it would some time bring us further 
light at least than we now possess. The results of psy- 
chological investigation and experimentation have as yet 
thrown but little light on the ultimate problems. They 
have cleared up to a certain extent many obscure points, 
but thus far have not overthrown, or at least proved false, 
the old views. How through sensation the mind comes to 



302 EZEKIEL GILMAN ROBINSON. 

a knowledge of the external world has not yet been dis- 
covered, and the " soul" is still the most rational theory 
of the inner life. For the purposes of Psychology, as now 
understood and studied, it may perhaps be superfluous and 
unnecessary ; but philosophically the need and substantial 
truth and reality of the soul are as great and as firmly 
established as ever. Thus far the philosophy taught by 
Dr. Eobinson stands firm ; and his students may rest upon it, 
and work on till the present twilight breaks in clearer day. 

In psychology, and I think in his ultimate philosophy 
as well, if he had any, Dr. Eobinson was a dualist. 
"Dualism," he said to the class of 1883, "is the only 
tenable position. " In his Brown teaching Dr. Eobinson 
did not go into speculative philosophy, strictly speaking, to 
any extent. He distinctly stated to some classes that he 
should not do so. His reason for the course adopted was 
probably the immaturity in power of thought and philo- 
sophical attainment of the students, and the lack of suffi- 
cient time for such discussion. Had he done graduate work 
to any extent, he would doubtless have given a course in 
speculative philosophy. In private conversation with me 
I have heard him say that, while he recognized the im- 
pulse of reason in the direction of monism, and the ten- 
dency of present philosophic thought in that direction, yet 
he felt, as in the case of dualism, its difficulties, chief of 
which was .that it necessitated pantheism. He could con- 
ceive of no monism that did not involve pantheism; and 
pantheism, from the point of view of ethics and theology, 
he considered a false philosophy. This at least was true in 
the present stage of our knowledge and experience. What 
the future may have in store for us is known only to God. 
In his own good time he will reveal it. Meanwhile it is 
our duty to study and to wait. It is wholly useless with 



AS A TEACHER OF PHILOSOPHY. 303 

our present data and insight to attempt to construct a final 
and complete system of philosophy. Such a system would 
be worthless if made. Teach, then, he would say, what we 
know ; investigate as far as we can, but leave the edges as 
ragged as the facts necessitate ; and never for the sake of 
system arbitrarily force facts into the mould of a philo- 
sophical theory, the product of mere abstract thought. 

It is generally admitted, and I think correctly, that Dr. 
Eobinson's work in Ethics was greater and more thoroughly 
satisfactory than that in Psychology, and that the course in 
Ethics was the best he gave at Brown. This was perhaps 
due partly to the fact that, great as was his ability and 
interest in speculative thought, his interest in the realiza- 
tion of ideal character and its philosophical foundations was 
still greater. With all his splendid intellectual insight 
and ability, he was both by nature and by habit pre- 
eminently a prophet and preacher as well as a specula- 
tive thinker. 

In Ethics Dr. Eobinson considered the most fundamental 
questions, especially at the present stage of ethical discus- 
sion, to be " those of conscience, inclusive of the moral 
judgments, and the ultimate ground of moral obligation. 
All ethical questions resolve themselves, in the last 
analysis, into the question of conscience and the final 
ground of its decisions." 1 Conscience, "the. most decisive 
characteristic of personality, . . . the foremost factor in 
a philosophy of ethics," is "the moral judiciary of the 
individual soul, the judge and the arraigned being one 
and the same person, . . . the reason passing judgments on 
acts with distinct consciousness that the acts judged are 
one's own, . . . the soul's inquisition with itself. ... It 
is that rational power by which the soul, with inwardly 
1 Principles and Practice of Morality, Preface, p. viii. 



304 EZEKIEL GILMAN KOBINSON. 

responsive emotions, and in obedience to an inward and 
inexorable necessity, judges itself and its own acts the 
instant the character of itself and its acts is disclosed. " 
It is distinguished from the moral faculty, " the soul's 
power to judge all kinds of moral acts, by whomsoever 
performed. . . . The difference is not in. the nature of the 
faculty, but in the function performed, and in the emotional 
results that follow. ... In the emotions awakened by a 
judgment on one's own bad acts, there is an element that 
never enters into the emotions from a judgment of the acts 
of others," — namely, remorse. The real function of con- 
science is to enforce the moral law accepted as such by the 
whole mind ; and its judgments, though necessary and cer- 
tain in view of this accepted law, are dependent for their 
accuracy upon the accuracy with which the other mental 
functions have performed their tasks. Conscience is su- 
preme, because, enforcing what the whole mind has accepted 
as law, it " simply expresses the highest authority the soul 
can know. " Its judgments are always according to one's 
present apprehension of moral truth, and " the very con- 
ception of authority as contrary to truth, or as superior to 
it, is subversive of the foundation of right and justice, and 
consequently of all obligation ; ... no external authority, 
whether of the parent, the state, the philosopher, the 
priest, the Bible, or experience and utility," being able 
to " reach the ruling power of the soul, " save through that 
" personal conviction of duty which it is the sole preroga- 
tive of the self-judging faculty to enforce. " A denial of its 
supreme authority is " to deny the possibility of religion, 
and to withdraw from morality its essential principle. " 

In his discussion of the origin of the conscience, Dr. 
Eobinson exhibited most clearly his appreciation of the 
truth, influence, and worth of the Derivative school of 



AS A TEACHER OF PHILOSOPHY. 305 

Ethics (Evolutionists, Sensationalists, Experientialists, 
Historical Ethics). Maintaining that conscience " as the 
soul's demand and capacity for moral distinctions, and 
for moral judgments with responsive emotions, is an 
integrant part of human nature as such, and is as universal 
as the human race," and that, like any other faculty, it 
can by practice and training be educated to the better 
performance of its functions, he also maintained that the 
derivatist " assumption that conscience is the product of 
education and training . . . confounds the faculty of con- 
science with its products, — with its judgments and the 
resulting emotions." It is the soul's conception of the 
moral law or ideal, the standard by which conscience 
judges, not the faculty that judges, that is given and 
changed by training and experience ; and, further, " there 
can be no emotion, call it by whatever name you will, 
without thought; and there can be no thought without a 
faculty for thinking. " 

" There is no solution of conscience apart from moral 
law. " According to Dr. Robinson, moral law is the 
point of contact between the intuitionalists and the cleriva- 
tists. The intuitionalists are right in affirming that con- 
science is an original endowment, and moral law an 
essential and constituent part of moral being. But the 
derivatists are right in asserting that a knowledge of the 
law by which conscience judges, and its education in 
strength, facility, promptness, and accuracy in performing 
its function, come largely from experience. 

Moral law exists as subjective principle and as objective 
rule or precept. As a subjective, constitutive principle of 
the personal being, it is " that requirement or series of 
requirements in the moral nature of man which he must 
strictly comply with, or there can be for him no realization 

20 



306 EZEKIEL GILMAN KOBINSON. 

of the moral and ideal perfection of his being. " " As 
objective precept, rule, or formal statute, moral law is 
simply the statement in words of what the indestructible 
properties or attributes of personal being are and inexorably 
require one to do and become if he is to attain the best 
type of manhood. ... If man bears the image of his 
Creator, — that is, embodies in his personality the same 
constituent principles of moral being as the Supreme 
Being, " — moral law is at once " a transcript of the 
Divine nature, " and " a picturing in words of the moral 
nature of a perfect man. " Moral law, therefore, " is not a 
something made for an end," but is simply revealed. 
The " sanctions of moral law are the natural sequences of 
moral actions. . . . The morally innocent cannot be morally 
punished, nor the morally guilty be by fiat absolved from 
penalty. The essence of moral penalty lies in self -con- 
viction of ill-desert," and there will be active penalty 
so long as there is active evil. " The penal sanctions of 
moral law, falling as a blight on the personal being, can 
be removed only by a remedial agency in which the be- 
neficent results of some new law observed shall counteract 
and obliterate the penal consequences of other laws that 
have been broken. . . . No remedial agency can so far 
obliterate the effects of penal sanctions as to restore one 
completely to that state to which he could have attained 
had he not transgressed. " Moral renewal is a reconstruc- 
tion of personal being and character through the agency of 
moral and spiritual ideas and forces. These are centred 
in the " archetypal and Divine Man, who alike unfolded 
the fulness of moral law in his teachings and illustrated 
its absolute perfection and its sanctions in his own person 
and life ; and who for all who will know him and trust in 
him as Teacher and Deliverer, will translate objective 



AS A TEACHER OF PHILOSOPHY. 307 

precept back into subjective principle, bringing the action 
of the will and the requirements of moral law into an 
ever-increasing accord. " * 

The exposition and discussion of moral law, especially of 
its nature and sanctions, exhibits most clearly the influence 
of physical science in clarifying, deepening, and enlarging 
the conceptions of ethics, and in removing from them all 
traces of externality and arbitrariness. It shows the moral 
life to be the normal and natural life for every man. 

Dr. Kobinson's most original work in Ethics was done 
on the topics of conscience and moral law. His discussion 
of these subjects, especially the latter, is undoubtedly his 
most permanently valuable contribution to ethical thought. 
His treatment of the will and of virtue and its theories is 
masterly ; his classification of the theories of the ultimate 
ground of obligation clear and for the most part accurate, 
and their discussion and criticism acute, searching, and in 
the main just. He held to the freedom of the will as " a 
necessary condition, an essential principle, of rational being 
as such, " and as " a harmonious working of all the powers 
of the personal being ; " and found the ultimate ground of 
obligation " in the immutable moral nature of an infinitely 
perfect archetypal Being. " 

In passing from the account of the philosophy taught by 
Dr. Eobinson to the final summary and critical estimate of 
his work as a teacher of philosophy, we must constantly 
bear in mind not only his qualifications for the work, but 

1 The foregoing account of Dr. Kobinson's doctrine of Conscience and 
Moral Law is purposely given for the most part in his own language. It 
confines itself to a brief statement of the chief characteristic points, and for 
the thorough comprehension of the nature, development, and grounds of his 
doctrine needs to be supplemented by a careful study of his " Principles and 
Practice of Morality." — A. G. L. 



308 EZEKIEL GILMAN" ROBINSON. 

also the conditions under which it had to be done. These 
conditions may be briefly summarized in the statement that 
he was both President and Professor, charged with the 
heavy and increasing duties of administration with their 
infinitely numerous, petty, and irritating details, consuming 
an immense amount of time and energy, and leaving a cor- 
respondingly less amount of both for the duties of instruc- 
tion ; and that he came from a graduate school to a college 
where he had to deal with students less mature intellec- 
tually, some of whom had little capacity for the study of 
philosophy, and many of whom had no interest therein. 

The philosophy he taught was a rational philosophy, and 
not one founded on authority. His method was always 
positive, increasingly so as the years passed by, and 
latterly at times verging very closely on the dogmatic ; 
but, strictly speaking, it was never dogmatic. Never in 
his thinking or teaching was he dogmatic in the sense 
of assertion on authority simply, or of effort to induce or 
to force the student to accept a statement or doctrine on 
mere authority. He was the very last man to do anything 
of this sort. His whole life of thought and instruction was 
totally opposed to such a method. In the formation of his 
views it was his habit, as I know from his repeated state- 
ments to me personally, and from the critically construc- 
tive character of all his work, to give as much, if not more, 
consideration to what could be said by way of objection to 
a given view, than to what might be advanced in its sup- 
port. 1 He always wanted to know the worst that could be 

1 In the lecture on "Faith and Authority," in the Graduate course of 
1878-79, Dr. Robinson said : "In past years, when a professor of theology, I 
felt it my duty to read a vast amount of sceptical literature. A Presbyterian 
minister talking with me said he should not have dared to do it. I replied : 
' I don't dare not to do it.' But I would not advise one to do too much of it, 
or any save in a humble spirit. The result of all is that the Person of Christ 



AS A TEACHER OF PHILOSOPHY. 309 

said against a position to which he was inclined, as then 
he knew the real strength of his own side and the real 
value of his own views. 

Ever learning and ever coming into a larger knowledge 
of the truth, he taught a progressive philosophy. He was 
always revising his dictations and bringing the latest facts 
and theories into the class-room expositions and discus- 
sions, and could not understand how so distinguished a 
philosopher as Sir William Hamilton could read or have 
read to his classes the same lectures without change for 
twenty years. That there were great and at present 
unsolvable problems, he was too wise to deny and too 
honest to conceal. Insisting on certain fundamental truths 
which he considered thoroughly well established in reason 
and absolutely essential to any real progress in philosophy 
or life, he occupied himself chiefly in teaching his students 
philosophy and its significance for life at the present stage 
of both. He held that the universe of mind and matter 
was an expression of God's thought and energy ; therefore 
we must push bravely on to such results as the Providence 
of God makes possible, joyfully accepting all new facts 
and insight, and modifying our previous constructions 
accordingly. 

He did not teach or attempt to teach a " final philosophy. " 
This he thought wholly beyond the power of man with his 
present limitations as to data and powers of insight and 
interpretation, and he regarded all attempts to construct 

and the New Testament are to me absolute authority. And this is not ir- 
rational ; there is no decree about it ; the truth vindicates itself." In the 
second lecture on " Final Cause," in the same course, he remarked : " It has 
been my lot to have read more than was probably healthful of the most bitter, 
blasphemous, and fearful writings against our holy religion ; and while I feel 
the force of the objections brought against it, yet I cannot look out on life 
and the future and not feel assured that God is behind it all." 



310 EZEKIEL GILMAN ROBINSON. 

such a philosophy or even to determine the complete body 
of principles absolutely essential thereto as pretentious and 
vain. For system-making in itself considered he had little 
concern. He never seemed anxious, therefore, to construct 
a completely ordered system for himself, and I doubt if he 
had such a system, even a tentative one. If he had, his 
students never found it out. Certain fundamental elements 
of such a complete system he taught with tremendous 
emphasis and with generally convincing power. But he 
was more intent on arousing his students to think for them- 
selves, to ground them in the essentials of a true philosophy 
and ethics, leaving them to complete the work than to 
furnish them with a ready-made system. He realized only 
too well that if a man has a real and genuine system of 
thought, it must be the product of his own' thinking, the 
outcome of his own reflection on the facts of the universe, 
including his own life and experience, and that only thus 
could it at all satisfy his reason or control his life. Aside 
too from these considerations, and behind them all, he was 
by nature and training stronger in analysis than synthesis, 
— though by no means lacking in synthetic power, — a man 
of insight rather than a systemizer ; and this trait, empha- 
sized by an intense love of truth and an earnest desire to 
attain it, led him to the most searching examination of all 
facts and theories claiming acceptance as truth. I have 
called his work critically constructive; but the emphasis 
should on the whole be on the " critical " rather than on the 
" constructive. " He synthetized and constructed as far and 
as fast as he was able ; but the critical in fact hindered the 
constructive, and systemization was correspondingly slow. 

As a critical thinker on broad fundamental principles, 
Dr. Eobinson was a master. For minute details he had 
little taste and small patience. The vitally essential points 



AS A TEACHER OF PHILOSOPHY. 311 

of a theory or principle he grasped with great rapidity, and 
in general with accuracy, and presented them with remark- 
able clearness and power, while his own criticisms of prin- 
ciple or theory were set forth in a manner even more acute 
and forcible. 

In his criticism of authors or theories Dr. Eobinson con- 
fined himself mainly to their rational grounds, such as the 
lack of a basis of fact, faulty interpretation and construction 
of fact, arbitrary assumption, and rational inconsistency. 
Frequently he pointed out clearly their practical conse- 
quences as legitimate considerations in estimating their 
truth and worth. But he never reflected on the motives of 
the authors of the theories in the sense of reflecting on their 
honesty, though he might and often did question their 
intellectual acumen and grasp. On the other hand, he often 
commended for their good points views with which he did 
not and could not agree ; and he repeatedly tried to find and 
point out the idea or thought underlying, in the minds of 
those holding thereto, a given theory or practice which he 
could neither sanction nor approve. 

The full effect of his otherwise magnificent teaching was 
lessened somewhat by his failure to secure the sympathy and 
affection of a large number of his students. This failure to 
secure sympathy was due largely to his natural reserve, 
emphasized by the well-nigh habitual repression of the emo- 
tions. But the fires of deep and powerful emotion burned 
within, gave vitality and intensity to all his life and work, 
his thought and utterance, and occasionally burst all barriers, 
and revealed themselves with a force and splendor that 
made itself felt, and was all the greater because rare and 
unexpected, and for this very reason more deeply and endur- 
ingly impressive. A man of profound and powerful convic- 
tions, the product of the heart as well as of the intellect, he 



312 EZEKIEL GILMAN ROBINSON. 

impressed in a masterful way, both in and out of the class- 
room, in spite of his lack of sympathy, a very large number 
of his students. 

This lack of sympathy probably partially accounts for his 
failure always fully to appreciate the difficulties of his 
students. His own mind working in long familiar fields 
with great rapidity and intensity, he was at times too impa- 
tient with the slower minds, because they did not at once or 
more rapidly see the truth and arguments presented. " If 
you can't see it, " he would say, " God help you, for I 
can't. " 

Intellectually intolerant at times he seemed to some' to 
be. Perhaps he was ; but if so, he was nowise different from 
other great and profound and independent thinkers, and I 
doubt if his intolerance, if such it was, ever involved any 
personal animus towards the person or persons holding the 
views from which he differed. He reminded one of Carlyle 
in his denunciation of what he thought wrong or a sham. 
In calmer moods, when out of the intense fires of class-room 
discussion, he was, in large part at least, certainly modest 
in regard to his own views, free from prejudice or intoler- 
ance, and considerate of the views of others. 

In point of time and in a sense he belongs to the older 
generation of philosophical thinkers and teachers, when the 
study had not the importance and rigidity of method it now 
has, especially in the scientific direction, deducing its prin- 
ciples from a much wider range of patiently observed and 
critically interpreted and systemized facts. In reality, 
however, he was fully abreast of the time, and indeed in 
some respects very much beyond it, especially in his firm 
insistence and constant emphasis on facts rather than 
theories, in his penetrating and exhaustive criticism and 
patient construction, and in his marvellously rapid propheti- 



AS A TEACHER OF PHILOSOPHY. 313 

cal insight into the real significance and tendencies of new 
and current phases of philosophic thought, and into the 
heart of the pretentious and sophistical assumptions and rea- 
sonings of physico-metaphysical and ethical theories, with 
their inevitable results in the moral, religious, and social 
life, and on the ultimate philosophy necessarily following 
therefrom. Long before the thinking world reached certain 
phases of thought, he saw they were coming and pointed 
them out, and as far as possible prepared his students 
to understand and, so far as v/as necessary, to meet them. 
Rather than force a closed system, let us leave things at loose 
ends, and hold firmly only to that which thus far seems 
indisputably true and rationally coherent with all we now 
know or seem likely soon to know. Other than this, wait 
and search. Such was the spirit of his philosophical think- 
ing and teaching throughout his life. More than one student 
owes to him all the rational faith he has. 1 He saved many 
from utter scepticism, and he did this by the very things 
just mentioned, — solid foundations in essentials, fairness 
in admitting and treating difficulties, in accepting what was 
valid and worthful in views opposed to those inculcated, 

1 Professor Benjamin Ide Wheeler, Ph. D., of Cornell University, writes : 
" I can never fully acknowledge the debt I owe to Dr. Robinson's preach- 
ing and instruction. He restated for me the old faith. I am not aware that 
he changed it, but he restated it in terms which enabled me to co-ordinate 
my religious thinking with my other thinking. When I came under his 
instruction in 1874, 1 was in rebellion against the faith of my boyhood. The 
old formulas had lost their meaning for me. My religious life and religious 
thinking had not grown with my growth. I was getting to be ashamed of 
them, as a youth is of his childhood's playthings. Dr. Robinson's teaching 
all tended to make a man approach the problems of the religious life with 
an openness and fearlessness that engendered confidence and rebuked the 
thought of shame, and best of all led to the construction of a faith that could 
hold a natural and constituent place in a man's whole thought and view of the 
universe. His teaching was suggestive and stimulating rather than system- 
atic. It inspired his men to build their own houses and not to live in rented 
tenements." 



314 EZEKIEL GILMAN ROBINSON. 

refusal for the sake of systematic completeness to assert 
beyond our knowledge and on the ground of mere abstract 
theory, and openness of mind to light that might come in 
the future. He not only taught these things, but was him- 
self a living exemplification and illustration of his teaching. 
Through the broadened and deepened thinking and life of 
his students he exerted a powerful and permanent liberaliz- 
ing influence, which still continues, on and in American 
ethical and religious thought. Both directly and indirectly 
much of the present movement in philosophical and religious 
thought and life is due to him. 

His dignified and impressive presence, indicative of philo- 
sophic mind and noble moral character, was an important 
element in his power and influence as a teacher and a man. 
His dignity was not haughtiness, and his seriousness was 
not austerity. His reserve and apparent distance were ele- 
ments of character more fully appreciated as men grew older ; 
and his fearlessness before men and reverence before God 
called out the same qualities in his students. His eye, 
when at rest, was quiet and deeply meditative, like Hegel's, 
indicating a mind that sees deep and far into truth and 
reality. When aroused, that same eye, like Sir William 
Hamilton's, could flash forth fire, penetrate to the very 
centre of the soul, and look the looker through and through. 

To those who never knew him in the class-room it is 
wellnigh impossible to convey an adequate and satisfactory 
idea of his power as a thinker and teacher. By such his 
special excellences as a teacher of philosophy will be most 
clearly seen in his spoken and written style, the outward 
expression of the inward thought. In fact, by such they can 
be seen only here. His style exhibits the conspicuous merits 
of most keen and penetrating analysis, remarkable precision 
and accuracy in definition, with the additional and often 



AS A TEACHER OF PHILOSOPHY. 315 

rare merit of abiding by the definition given throughout the 
discussion ; lucid, terse, incisive, and forcible statement of 
principles ; exposition clear and discriminating in quality 
and quantity; and a logic, including the justification of the 
premises as well as the argumentation thence proceeding, 
masterly and generally convincing. It is a philosophical 
style at once simple, lucid, compact, strong, and attractive, 
with none of the diffuseness and mistiness which charac- 
terizes so much of the philosophic writing of the present 
day. He was indisputably superior to the large majority of 
thinkers in exact thought and expression. 

Doubtless greater in theology than in philosophy, his 
work in philosophy both as thinker and teacher was great 
and powerful, of permanent and abiding worth, both in 
spirit and substance an essential part of our country's work 
and heritage. Certain fundamental doctrines, such as that 
of consciousness in Psychology, and those of conscience 
and especially moral law in Ethics, have been more clearly 
set forth and more firmly established by him than ever 
before. 

He was a magnificent example and illustration of the 
essential character of Brown University training as it 
always has been in the past, and as I trust it always will 
continue to be in the future. This training aimed to develop 
the acutest and strongest intellect, but at the same time to 
make it subordinate to the purest sensibility and the noblest 
will. The aim and spirit that ruled in all the past history 
of the College was identical with that of its late President 
and Professor of Philosophy. It was said of him when he 
left Eochester for Brown : " He was a great educator rather 
than a great teacher. " I should prefer to say that he was a 
great teacher, but a greater educator, and that he was both 
because he was a great man. The best students always 



316 EZEKIEL GILMAN ROBINSON. 

appreciated him. His work was great and worthy work, — 
worthy of the splendid personality that did it, and of price- 
less worth to the students and the university in and for 
whom it was done. It was the transfusion of intellectual 
and moral energy, the continuous begetting of new and vig- 
orous life and personality. It will be an irreparable and 
fatal loss, if all our colleges and universities do not in the 
future possess at least one great teacher like him, who will 
pour out their lives into the lives, and impress their charac- 
ters on the characters, of their pupils, charging them with 
the vital force of their own personality, — a force which no 
stress of labor or trial in life's battle can wholly destroy. 
If we have not such men, then, as President Andrews once 
said, " we must grow them, " or others as nearly like them 
as the changing conditions of life and civilization make 
possible. Such was our loved teacher to very many of us. 
Some of us can truly say, with full appreciation and grati- 
tude to all our other teachers, that his work with us and in 
us was the greatest and best we have ever known. 



IX. 

AS COLLEAGUE AT THE UNIVERSITY OF 
CHICAGO. 



By PRESIDENT WILLIAM R. HARPER, PH.D., LL.D. 



IX. 

AS COLLEAGUE AT CHICAGO. 

IT is with great hesitation that I undertake to represent, 
even in outline, the work of Dr. Eobinson during the 
last two years of his life, while professor in- the University 
of Chicago. The hesitation is due to a feeling that, however 
minute the statement may be, it will inadequately describe 
these crowning years of his life and work. The influence 
which he exerted, as indeed is every influence of the high- 
est order, was one which could be felt, but not described. 

When it was proposed one Sunday morning at Yassar 
College to Dr. Eobinson that he should join the Faculty of 
the new University, an institution which at that time was 
still a dream, he manifested the greatest possible interest in 
the work proposed, but evidently hesitated to accept the 
proposition, because of his age. With characteristic mod- 
esty he feared that he might prove a burden to the new 
university. In those earliest days, when the attitude of 
mind in reference to the new undertaking was almost uni- 
versally that of doubt, and in not a few cases that of sus- 
picion, the heartiness of Dr. Eobinson 's words, his strong 
faith in the future of the institution, and his kindly per- 
sonal disposition did more to encourage some of us than 
any other one element in the situation. In my conversa- 
tions with Dr. Eobinson at Vassar College, where it was 
my good fortune to meet him more than once, he would 
enter into the most minute details of the organization, and 



320 EZEKIEL GILMAN EOBINSOK 

discuss the new departures proposed with an interest and a 
freshness almost beyond description. His vast fund of ex- 
perience and his kindly appreciation of new features com- 
bined to furnish help of a most important character. 

The work proposed in connection with the Department 
of Philosophy — namely, a course in Christian Evidences 
and a course in Christian Ethics, each of which should con- 
tinue through six months — appealed to him very strongly, 
and he entered upon the work with the enthusiasm of a 
young man. 

The thought has often suggested itself to me, how great 
the contrast must have seemed to him between the old in- 
stitutions at Eochester and Providence to which he had 
given so many years of his life, and the new institution 
which he now entered at a time when, under ordinary cir- 
cumstances, his life work would seem to have been finished. 
The work of the first year in the University of Chicago will 
never be forgotten by those who participated in it. "With a 
great Faculty, most of whom were strangers to each other, 
and a body of students coming from more than a hundred 
different institutions ; with a plan of organization wholly 
distinct from anything with which any of the Faculty or 
students had experience, and no traditions ; with a lack of 
many necessary facilities for doing work ; with all of the 
confusion growing out of the near proximity to the grounds 
of the World's Columbian Exposition, — it is difficult for 
any one who was not a part of the institution to realize how 
entirely strange must have been the situation, especially to 
those who had been connected with institutions long estab- 
lished, in which rigid routine existed, and in which the 
life and work had taken on a fixed and formal character. 
Through all this period Dr. Eobinson worked quietly, regu- 
larly, and enthusiastically. No lectures were more highly 



AS COLLEAGUE AT CHICAGO. 321 

appreciated, and none aroused a more general interest. 
Again and again a student has come to me with the state- 
ment that he regarded it as the greatest privilege of his life 
to have come in contact with Dr. Robinson in the class- 
room. The fidelity with which he performed his work was 
an example to every member of the new Faculty, young and 
old. The very fact that a man of such reputation, whose 
work had been so marked, could, at his time of life, take 
up so cheerfully and so energetically a new work, in a new 
city, in the midst of new surroundings, in a new faculty, 
the great majority of which were young men, occasioned 
surprise, and at the same time exerted a peculiar influence 
upon all. 

It is true that Dr. Robinson did not attend the Faculty 
meetings. Before the opening of the University he came to 
me and raised the question whether it would be best for 
him, compelled, as he was, to husband his strength, to take 
an active part in the administration of the University. It 
was, of course, evident that such expenditure of his time 
and strength would not be to the best interests of the Uni- 
versity. But no important questions were discussed, and 
no important action was taken, in reference to which his 
advice was not received ; and on many occasions he most 
kindly and generously made suggestions which w T ere most 
helpful with reference to questions of a particular character, 
as well as questions of a general character. When I re- 
member the many occasions on which he permitted me to 
consult him, and the many occasions on which unsolicited 
he came forward to offer his suggestions, I realize how 
deeply interested he was in the undertaking, and how, not- 
withstanding his age, his mind occupied itself with the 
problems of the new situation. There were not a few deli- 
cate questions concerning which it was important that 

21 



322 EZEKIEL GILMAN EOBINSON". 

right action should be taken from the beginning. In every 
case his experience and his great fund of practical wisdom 
furnished material without which it would have been diffi- 
cult to act. 

A few days before the opening of the second year, he sent 
for me to announce that in all probability he would not be 
able to take up the work of the year, his physician having 
notified him of the disease which later was to prove fatal. 
He wished to know whether, if he recovered his strength 
sufficiently, notwithstanding the physical difficulty which 
had come upon him, it might not be best for him to con- 
tinue his work. The courage of the man at this critical 
point, and his eager desire to carry out the announcements 
which had been made for his classes, gave me a new con- 
ception of the vigor and energy of his spirit. When the 
opening day of the year came, Dr. Eobinson was at his post, 
and through the entire year, without a single omission, he 
performed the duties of his chair, being conveyed to and 
from the University in a carriage on days when the weather 
was particularly inclement. Toward the end of the year he 
saw that the time had come for the further organization of 
the Department of Philosophy, and, fearing that his presence 
might bean embarrassment to such reorganization, he placed 
his resignation in my hands. This resignation was never 
accepted by the Board of Trustees. With the new plans 
for the department he was in hearty sympathy ; and when 
he left Chicago for the East in April, it was his desire, and 
at the same time the purpose of the University, that he 
should return and continue his work. If his life had been 
spared two or three years more, it is impossible to conceive 
how much greater his influence among the students would 
have become, for they were just beginning to realize the 
value of his work and appreciate its helpfulness. 



AS COLLEAGUE AT CHICAGO. 323 

Providence ordered that he should not return. Short, 
however, as was his stay with us ; hampered as he was, 
especially during the last year, hy his illness, — Dr. Robin- 
son's connection with the University left an impression upon 
its organization, the members of its Faculty and its students, 
which will never be forgotten. I consider it to have been, 
perhaps, the greatest single advantage of the early history 
of the University, so far as concerns the Faculty of the 
institution, that in the Providence of God it was possible 
for him to live and work with us during these years. Per- 
sonally and officially, I wish to make acknowledgment of 
the many and great benefits which accrued to the University 
from his residence. 



NOTE. 

ON DR. ROBINSON'S RESPECT FOR AVERAGE MINDS. 

There is no rumor that Dr. Robinson ever showed special 
favor to any undergraduate ; but it has been suspected that he 
held in contempt students of only average intelligence. Cer- 
tainly he treated pretentious dulness with scorn ; and he did 
not love a question of which the student ought to find the 
answer for himself. " Doctor, which is the right pronunci- 
ation, Gennesaret, or Gennesaret?" "The Sea of Galilee." 
If the story is not true, it is well invented. But the testimony 
from Brown University is explicit that he was careful to en- 
courage all modest and faithful men. How he bore himself 
at the University of Chicago is testified by the Dean of the 
Divinity School, Professor Eri B. Hulbert, D. D. — Ed. 

" It fell to my lot to register most of the students who took Dr. 
Robinson's lectures. The fame of the man and the importance of 
his topics made the students eager to take his courses. By a rule of 
the University only advanced men, in limited numbers, are admitted 
to Seminars : while men of lower attainments, and to the number of 



324 EZEKIEL GILMAN ROBINSON. 

thirty, may be received into the lecture classes. I had no difficulty in 
selecting men for the Seminars, but the lecture courses troubled me. 
I was aware that Dr. Robinson's heart warmed toward brilliant 
students ; but what was I to do with ordinary men, having no claim 
to brilliancy, who were eager to enjoy his instruction ? In my per- 
plexity, I submitted the question to the teacher himself. With some 
warmth he instructed me not to draw this distinction, assuring me 
that he would find peculiar satisfaction in aiding those whose sole 
commendation was plodding fidelity. He seemed almost hurt that I 
should hesitate. I enrolled men of high and low degree, women, and 
foreigners. So the work began and continued. Frequently the 
Doctor came to my office to tell me of the progress inferior men were 
making, and to assure me of his patience and painstaking with 
mediocrity and dulness. His kindly interest in ordinary students as 
well as men of conspicuous ability revealed to me a new trait in Dr. 
Robinson's character, which trait endeared him to all who were 
fortunate enough to be numbered among his pupils." — E. B. H. 



X. 

DR. ROBINSON AS AN ORATOR AND A MAN 
OF LETTERS. 



By PROFESSOR W. C. WILKINSON, D.D., 
University of Chicago. 



X. 

AS AN ORATOR AND A MAN OF LETTERS. 

DE. ROBINSON was in every respect — physically, 
mentally, morally — a striking personality. This 
will of course have been said many times elsewhere in these 
pages ; but that is no reason why it should not be said addi- 
tionally here. The fact that exists can in no other way 
make its due impression than by repeated restatements of it 
made from different personal points of view. One comes to 
associate so inseparably the physical aspect and impression of 
a man with that man's peculiar type of mental and moral 
character, that it is perhaps not often safe in any given 
case to say that there was from the beginning an inherent 
and inevitable " pre-established harmony " between the one 
and the other. But certainly, if to say so be in any case 
whatsoever safe, then it would seem to be safe in the case 
of Dr. Robinson. 

His tall form, not always erect, but always capable of 
erecting itself, and upon fit oratorio occasion frequently 
doing so with commanding effect; his habitual carriage, 
naturally dignified and decorous, but of a character betok- 
ening it that of a person who scorned to be finical, and who 
might surprise you with a sudden manly breach of the con- 
ventional ; his gait, the stalwart stride of a man intent on 
getting forward, while in will, as in locomotive equipment, 
amply able to get forward, and that with speed, too, such 
as would put you upon your mettle to keep up with him ; 



328 EZEKIEL GILMAN ROBINSON. 

his voice, a mint of the clearest-cut, freshest-stamped utter- 
ance, given forth in tones keen, incisive, insistent, penetra- 
tive, tones fond of the high key natural to a mind consciously 
pressing to a point perfectly well perceived ahead, but ready 
at times to bottom out into a solid, hearty, rich, vibrant, 
pectoral quality, — all these outward traits in Dr. Eobinson 
you felt to be but the reflex of the manner of man that he 
inwardly and essentially was. 

Have I seemed to describe a man in whom the challen- 
ging, the aggressive, the belligerent, spirit predominated ? 
Well, complaisance was undoubtedly not the chief note of 
Dr. Eobinson \s character. Still, there was fineness in him, 
as well as strength. His heart was tender and true when 
you got to it, although he was indeed far from wearing it on 
his sleeve. And running all through his intellectual con- 
stitution was a vein of the genuinely imaginative and 
poetical. I can testify to the fact that when, in his fresh 
manly prime, he first came from pastorship in Cincinnati 
to Eochester as teacher of theology, and there immediately 
began to make himself felt as a preacher of extraordinary 
power and brilliancy, one of the traits in him that gained 
him the adhesion and admiration of the most cultivated 
and the choicest among the students, both of the seminary 
and of the college, was the openness, the hospitality, that 
he displayed to the influence of the poets, and the occasional 
gleam, as of original poetry, that lighted up his eloquence. 

It seems to me now, as I recall the cycle of discourses 
which he delivered on the then current phases of religious 
scepticism during the autumn and winter of the first year of 
his memorable work in Eochester, that he never afterward 
surpassed the triumphs of that period of his pulpit achieve- 
ment. I know of a circle of young men — friends they 
were in perpetual council as to things of the spirit — among 



AS AN ORATOR AND A MAN OF LETTERS. 329 

the Eochester students, who used as often as possible to 
meet after each one of the evening discourses now alluded 
to, and discuss it in a prolonged symposium of mutually 
exciting and excited admiration and delight. The writer 
of the present contribution, then a college freshman, but 
admitted by special privilege to quasi-equal fraternal rela- 
tionship of intellect with certain choice spirits of the 
theologues, was one of this, alas ! now long since unsoldered 
round table. He taught a district school fifteen miles away 
from the city during a part of the time covered by the 
delivery of those memorable discourses. This prevented his 
hearing the whole series. 

There was one signal occasion, however, which he, though 
so far away, felt that he could not miss. After preaching 
himself twice that Sunday sermons prepared under pressure 
of a sudden call, in the midst of a week filled to the brim 
with six days' teaching (six hours each day), he walked 
those fifteen miles to Eochester, that he might hear Dr. 
Eobinson on Theodore Parker. (This lover of pulpit elo- 
quence had in addition previously walked two miles out 
and two miles back between house and church to do his 
own preaching. ) I mention this incident to illustrate the 
enthusiasm aroused by Dr. Eobinson 's pulpit eloquence of 
that time. The particular demonstration described was no 
doubt a specimen of individual youthful extravagance ; but 
it was such extravagance as was little likely to have occurred 
without a surrounding atmosphere of contagious enthusiasm 
to support it. 

The discourses thus recalled were, like Dr. Eobinson 's 
discourses in general, from the beginning to the end of his 
conspicuous career, delivered extempore. And now I must 
say something which, save to the most thoughtful, will 
seem like derogation from the praise that I bestow ; to some 



330 EZEKIEL GILMAN ROBINSON. 

it will seem, on the contrary, enhancement, rather than 
diminution, of eulogy. Brilliant then, as those discourses 
were, and powerful, they yet fell something short of that 
decisively triumphant effect in oratory of which the speaker 
all the time tantalizingly seemed capable. This was, I 
think, the case with Dr. Bobinson's public discourse gener- 
ally. There was a certain lack of abandon, a certain self- 
checking refusal on the part of the preacher to trust himself 
wholly to the sweep of the inspiration that was perpetually 
swelling within him almost, but not quite, to the volume 
and the head that would burst every barrier and pour forth 
eloquence in an irresistible torrent, in an overwhelming 
flood. 

I account for this just missing, on Dr. Eobinson's part, 
of the supreme achievement in oratory, chiefly by two con- 
siderations : one pertaining to the personal constitution of 
the man, and the other incidental to the occupation of his 
life. Dr. Eobinson was primarily a teacher, and but 
secondarily a preacher. His habit in utterance was formed 
and was controlled by the practice of the class-room rather 
than by the practice of the pulpit. He thought in brief, 
rapid " swallow-flights " of the mind, rather than in long, 
continuous, sustained voyages to a goal far off, but clearly 
perceived and definitely aimed at. He seemed to challenge 
and invite interpellation from his hearers. This he often 
secured in the class-room ; and then it was that he appeared 
in the full glory and power of his extemporary eloquence. 
He perhaps needed such perfectly sensible and unmistak- 
able reaction on the part of his audience, to bring him out 
in the plenitude of his incredibly swift and ready play of 
intellect and of imagination. 

"To that, three things may be replied," was almost a, 
formula with him, when a student would state an objection 



AS AN ORATOR AND A MAN OF LETTERS. 331 

to some point made by the teacher. " In the first place, " 
and Dr. Eobinson would launch himself full speed at once 
in reply, with lightning-like celerity and infallible precision 
of aim. The effect was incalculably enhanced by an unsur- 
passed, unsurpassable clearness, accuracy, emphasis, momen- 
tum, of articulation and utterance, sufficient in themselves 
to have produced a complete illusion of the intellectual 
quality corresponding, even had that quality been, as it was 
not, wanting. The chances were even that the second and 
third of the " three things " would not be reached. To me, 
as pupil, it was often in some respectful doubt whether the 
" three things " were as clearly present to my teacher's mind 
at the moment of his venturing to assert their existence, as 
in his own confident conviction they were at least potentially 
available, and safe, at need, to be depended upon for yield- 
ing themselves up to the quest of that imperious and impor- 
tunate intellect of his. In truth, and though it be a thing 
paradoxical to say, Dr. Eobinson 's habitual manner of chal- 
lenge and self-confidence appeared to me the unconscious 
self-rallying expedient of a nature sincerely modest, even 
timid, much more than that outward expression of overbear- 
ing spirit in the man, which by the casual observer it might 
easily be mistaken to be. 

This leads naturally to the stating of the second one of 
the two considerations which to me chiefly account for Dr. 
Eobinson 's not being in fact quite the supremely triumphant 
orator that he seemed in almost all respects so capable 
of being. Notwithstanding his high, half-haughty, half- 
scornful outward air of audacious self-assertion, Dr. Eobin- 
son was at bottom too modestly doubtful of himself, or, if 
you please, he had too much wise disdain of pretending to 
be, where he knew he was not, altogether sure of his ground ; 
in a word, he was too much a thinker, pure and simple, 



332 EZEKIEL GILMAN EOBINSON. 

with the thinker's circumspect speculation and misgiving, 
to be the bold mere voice that the popular orator has need 
to be. 

It is hardly a third consideration, though it admits of 
being named as such, the fact that Dr. Eobinson's equip- 
ment was too predominantly of the intellect, rather than of 
the heart, to constitute him the ideal orator. " Eather than 
of the heart, " I say. But it is of what I may call public, 
not private, heart that I speak. Toward his friends, and 
especially toward his kindred, the people of his home, Dr. 
Eobinson, I should do him wrong not also to say, had a 
capacity of the most exquisite, the most costly, affection. 
Yet it remains true that, although for personal friendship 
and for the intimacies of the hearth, thus choicely and 
richly endowed, he was comparatively wanting in that 
broad, that genial, that common, quality of temperament 
which seems often to inscribe the elect popular favorite's 
heart, Pro bono publico, and offer it freely for daws to peck 
at. But this very characteristic in Dr. Eobinson helped 
make him, helped keep him, the teacher, in his kind not 
easily equalled among his coevals, that he was universally 
acknowledged to be. 

Apart from the orator and the educator that he was, Dr. 
Eobinson was potentially a literary man of a very high 
order. I have just now been re-reading the inaugural 
address delivered by him on occasion of his being inducted 
into his office as professor of theology at Eochester in 1853. 
Dr. Maginnis, a clear and venerable name in Baptist educa- 
tional history, had, not long before, died while occupying 
the place in which Dr. Eobinson now stood as his successor. 
Here are the sentences with which the inaugural address 
begins. I invite any qualified critic of literature to name 
a single point at which, for brevity, simplicity, sincerity, 



AS AN ORATOR AND A MAN OF LETTERS. 333 

measure, fitness — and I might almost add, as to turn of 
expression, felicity and grace — these sentences are wanting. 
The buried Wordsworthian quotation and allusion in them 
takes on a value not less really poetical, and distinctly 
more substantial, than that belonging to the lines of the 
original : — 

" The service that has brought us here this evening cannot 
but turn the first thoughts of most of us to one who a 
twelvemonth ago was in life and among us, but who to-night 
sleeps with the dead. And, surely, it is fitting that in 
passing to the evening's reflections, we take his resting- 
plac^ in our way. The thoughts that are to engage us will 
take a sober coloring from eyes that have but glanced at the 
tomb, especially the tomb that conceals from us so much of 
intellect and piety. It might be profitable even to linger 
here in our meditations. It would strengthen our courage 
to look steadily at the example of one who, while com- 
pelled, his life long, to defend himself against the attacks 
of disease with the one hand, could yet with the other 
accomplish so much for the Master. 

" But he needs no memorial at our hands ; and, least of 
all, in this place, where genius and sanctified friendship 
have already presented one inimitable in its beauty and 
eloquence. [The allusion is, I believe, to a discourse pro- 
nounced by Dr. William E. Williams, but modestly with- 
held by him from print. ] Indeed, he had engraved a memo- 
rial for himself on the spirits of his pupils. He had erected 
to himself a monument in every mind that had felt the 
power of his influence. The monuments of his worth and 
witnesses of his toils are here, and are scattered throughout 
our land. His works will be still praising him. 

" But to stand in his vacant place, and take up his work 
where he left it, is certainly no idle undertaking. You 



334 EZEKIEL GILMAN ROBINSON. 

know how sad and solemn is the task laid on him who is 
made to lift, with untried hand, the staff that dropped from 
the hand of such experience. Your sympathies and prayers, 
I am confident, may be relied on for the future ; for the 
present, your kindly attention is bespoken, while a delinea- 
tion is attempted of the need and the advantages, in our 
day, of what, for the want of a better phraseology, may be 
denominated Experimental Theology. " 

Something like the same awe, as in the presence of the 
noble dead, that inspired the foregoing exordium, usurps 
now the present writer's mind in concluding this very inade- 
quate tribute to the memory of Dr. Eobinson. If former 
students of his suffer themselves ever to recall that the 
teacher whom they so much admire sometimes indulged, to 
a degree beyond what was wisest and best, in a certain dis- 
dain as toward fellows of his, perhaps less gifted, or even 
less elevated in character, than he was himself, then those 
students will be irresistibly reminded likewise that as 
toward one personage at least, that lofty, that imperial, 
spirit always uncovered himself with a reverence and an 
awe that was as unreserved and as absolute as it was unques- 
tionably sincere. There is no image of my revered teacher 
in theology dearer to memory with me, none spiritually 
more helpful, than the image of that noble head, silver in 
advance of its time, declined in reverence before the invisible 
Christ, while the repressed manly voice vibrated out its 
rich, sweet tones in prayer, amid the gathering glooms of 
the twilight-tide, at the close of the daily two-hour session 
of the classes, in the little upper room where we met in the 
Seminary at Eochester. 

Whatever else fail from my mind of the memory of Dr. 
Eobinson, let that august, that pathetic image of him, 
adoring, abide ! 



AS AN ORATOR AND A MAN OF LETTERS. 335 

N T E. 

ON DR. ROBINSON'S ELOQUENCE. 

(From Memorial Address by Rev. W. H. P. Fauuce, D.D.) 

" His last public discourses were his best. He had found 
subterranean foothold and rootage in the realms of truth, each 
year adding new diameters to his girth, and unfolding new 
ramifications of thought and life. At fourscore there was not 
the slightest mental decrepitude. He stood umbrageous and 
prolific when many a sapling was in the sear and yellow leaf. 

" We students knew him as a speaker and preacher long 
before we came under his instruction in the senior year. As 
a preacher, he was logic on fire. He thought on his feet, not 
repeating sentences carefully conned in the study, but actually 
going through the thought process in the presence of his audi- 
ence ; and we had the same pleasure in hearing as in watching 
a powerful engine in resistless and serene movement. We 
shall never forget his sermons on the Day of Prayer for 
Colleges or his thrilling baccalaureates. He always chose 
great themes, and treated them greatly. . . . 

" As a speaker he cared nothing for the adornments of 
showy rhetoric. He had no artifice of speech ; he never got 
into the period of ' anecdotage.' He was like a builder so in- 
tent on getting massive timbers into place that he had no eye 
for stucco and fresco. The stripling preachers of our day, 
whose chief effort is to collect stories with a moral, may well 
remember how this man worked. He stood out on the plat- 
form with no device save that of truth and personal character. 
The strength of his blade would not have been aided by any 
petty carving at the hilt. He hewed to the line in pithy, 
straightforward speech, and at every blow cut away some 
tangle of mental underbrush. Probably no man in this coun- 
try possessed a finer extemporaneous English style. Like his 
own body, it was flexible and muscular, the perfect vehicle of 
his burning thought. He was absolutely simple and lucid. 
One might disagree ; he could not misunderstand. Fogginess 



336 EZEKIEL GILMAN ROBINSON. 

he hated. His style was like a morning atmosphere in which 
each object stands out sharp and bold. 

''Hence he had immense power to carry conviction to an 
assembly. As he proceeded he kindled, until his voice grew 
clear and resonant, the eyes gleamed dark with scorn of false- 
hood and evil, the gestures grew more swift and awkward, 
until at some critical moment his left hand was thrust into 
his pocket ! Then came the lightning and the thunder. The 
hand in pocket was the unfailing sign that the preacher had 
been totally swept away in the torrent of his own conviction. 
His Yale lectures on preaching outline his own method, and in 
some degree disclose the secret of his power." 



XL 

DR. ROBINSON AS A TRUSTEE AND A 
FRIEND. 



By PRESIDENT J. M. TAYLOR, D. D., LL.D., 

Vassar College. 



XI. 

AS A TRUSTEE AND A FRIEND. 

AMONG the services Dr. Robinson rendered to his gen- 
eration, probably none is more likely to be lost sight 
of by most who knew him than his trusteeship of Vassar 
College. The office is so frequently perfunctory, and its 
responsibility so divided among many, that the real service 
of a trustee to education in general, as well as to his insti- 
tution, is likely to be forgotten. Dr. Robinson was chosen 
by Matthew Vassar, the founder, as a charter trustee of the 
institution he was about to build. It was a time when but 
few efforts had been made for the higher education of young 
women, and when public opinion was either indifferent or 
antagonistic to the conception of Mr. Vassar. There was a 
call, therefore, in the new board, for a wide experience in 
the organization and administration of educational institu- 
tions, for a liberal conception of educational policy, for the 
balance of judgment which should meet new conditions with 
new and liberal views, and yet not antagonize the conserva- 
tive instincts of society with a dreaded radicalism. It is 
difficult for any one to-day even to recall the critical condi- 
tions in which the trustees undertook their new work. 

Probably no injustice will be done the many wise workers 
in this cause if it be said that in those early years Dr. 
Robinson was one of the chief formative influences at 
Vassar. His active service continued till the end of his 
life ; and indeed his last public service of any kind was 



340 EZEKIEL GILMAN ROBINSON. 

rendered in the chapel of Vassar, on May thirteenth, a 
month before he died. 

He brought the rarest qualifications to this work. Him- 
self an able administrator, he saw clearly the danger which 
threatened the new administration, and gave to President 
Eaymond his powerful support and sympathy. Down to his 
latest years, — and he served the college thirty -three years, 
— he kept his interest in the questions bearing on the respon- 
sibility and power of the executive, and was himself instru- 
mental in bringing about the latest changes which made for 
the unification of the various powers of administration, and 
hence for their efficiency. 

In questions of the curriculum, again, he proved himself 
not only the experienced, but the born educator. He kept 
his mind open to every new suggestion, as was • his wont in 
theology, philosophy, all truth ; but he was not driven of 
the wind and tossed. Certain definite lines in education 
were clear. A teacher by nature, whose very throne was 
the class-room and the pulpit, he stood for an educational 
policy which should promise thoroughness, the development 
of individuality and independent thought, breadth, fearless- 
ness, and efficiency in action. The questions of the relation 
of prescribed and elective work he settled for himself on 
lines promising first thorough foundations, and after that 
a broader, liberal outlook. He avoided extremes in discuss- 
ing the vexed question of the relations of graduate and 
undergraduate work in the college, and as at Brown as presi- 
dent, so at Vassar as trustee, he stood for whatever could 
be done honestly, thoroughly, and efficiently. 

Of how much value his counsel has been in these last 
years, it would be difficult to speak too strongly. In his 
advice about teachers, in his clear views of a wise, progres- 
sive policy, in his counsel regarding questions of curriculum 



AS A TRUSTEE AND A FRIEND. 341 

and administration, he was always sure of an eager and 
respectful attention from his colleagues ; and in his lectures 
on ethics, and in the sermons he delivered in the chapel 
from time to time, he won as well the interest and the 
admiration of the students. 

Eeference has already been made to his last sermon. It 
was a presentation of the claims of the truth in its appeal to 
our consciousness, in contrast with the claim of external 
evidence, — " though one rise from the dead. " With the 
energy of earlier years the speaker most impressively urged 
the appeal of the Spirit to our spirits, and with such fresh- 
ness, and grasp of all recent speculation, as led a student to 
remark afterward, " It was the sermon of a young man. " 
She could not know that no young man could have preached 
it, that it was the product of years of thought, and, what is 
more, of deep experience in things spiritual. 

To speak of Dr. Kobinson as a counsellor is to bring into 
view the qualities which made him so fast and firm and 
helpful a friend. To many this side of his character was 
little known. Certainly to those who, as students, never 
came to know him well, his appearance may be said to have 
been stern, cold, intellectual, rather than sympathetic, 
cordial, and fatherly. He was of a reserved nature, not 
given to the display of his feelings, and even holding them 
in check by his great self-control. It was inevitable that 
most who only knew him in the class-room should so 
measure him. Many never understood how abiding was 
his interest for them all, how he followed his students in 
their careers, and how he rejoiced in their successes. Those 
who came to know him well found more. They saw that 
the feeling of which the public gained an occasional glimpse 
— as when his emotions overcame him in his address at the 
obsequies of Lincoln — betokened a condition, and not an 



342 EZEKIEL GILMAN EOBINSON. 

incident. His heart was as strong as his head. His distin- 
guishing intellectual qualities were set in an emotional and 
affectionate nature marked by the same characteristics. 
Those who saw him in the more intimate hours of his 
home-life will recall the niany evidences of his tenderness 
of heart. The writer recalls a Christmas evening in Provi- 
dence when he was found in his library, and his talk of the 
lessons of a holiday to a household already broken, and how 
affectionately he talked of a little girl whom he had buried 
many years before. Nor will this seem singular to those 
who knew him in his latest ministry in Philadelphia, when 
his afflictions and the mellowness of age seemed to lead him 
to allow more of this tenderness of his nature to shine 
through his preaching and his other ministrations. How 
deeply he felt the occasional word which came to him from 
some student who had learned the debt he owed to his teach- 
ing! Exceedingly modest in his estimate of the value of 
his work for men, these occasional testimonies seemed to 
bring to him a genuine joy. 

This side of Dr. Eobinson's nature must be dwelt on if 
one would understand his character. " The old man has a 
heart, " he said a little while since, " if he does not wear it 
on his sleeve. " He was not merely intellectual, as some 
thought, though his intellect was of remarkable keenness 
and force. His interests were not primarily speculative, 
though he felt the fascination of speculation in the mine of 
truth. His moral and intellectual enthusiasms were touched 
throughout by deep feeling, restrained, often unmanifested, 
but giving after all the peculiar note of power to his work 
in the class-room and the pulpit. Indeed, no one could 
have been the orator he was whose thought was not instinct 
with feeling. 

The great outlines of the character which made him so 



AS A TRUSTEE AND A FRIEND. 343 

stimulating and inspiring, so revered and loved, as a friend, 
are easily sketched, though their combination was his own 
deep strong character. 

He set truth before him, in thought and life, as his ideal. 
His love of it was apparent to all who knew him. No one 
could associate with him, and not feel impelled to seek as 
he sought. " Gentlemen, " he would say in the theological 
class-room, " if we live in a house of cobs, let us down with 
it. " No consideration of comfort or policy blinded him to 
his duty to seek the simple truth ; and his influence on those 
who knew him well was thus to stimulate all love of truth 
and hatred of all sham. His students will never forget that 
question which so often probed their general statements, 
" Precisely what do you mean by that ? " 

His fearlessness in pursuit of his ideal was another most 
prominent characteristic. It went hand in hand with his 
love of truth. He was singularly free from the bond of tra- 
ditional belief, while holding the balance of mind which 
kept him from rationalism and radicalism. This quality 
gave a certain polemical turn to his teaching and his think- 
ing. In the years when he was followed rather closely 
because of the views he was teaching regarding the Atone- 
ment, — views which, in their essential lines, have become 
common beliefs to-day, — his examination days brought out 
many a keen discussion. " Look out, gentlemen, " he once 
said, as some examiners were pressing a student with ques- 
tions bearing on this point, — " look out ; they scent a heresy. " 
But on the platform, in private conversation, in the most 
friendly relations at home, one was sure that Dr. Eobinson 
would never hide his views nor trim them to suit the 
demands of any man or any body of men. As was said of 
the Puritans, it might be said of him, " He feared God and 
nothing else ; " and the man who knew him and was 



344 EZEKIEL GILMAN ROBINSON. 

privileged to enter into friendly relations with him must 
have felt the influence of that mental and moral courage 
which shone out of his very presence. 

Combined with these qualities was a great breadth of 
hitman interest. To many a student he seemed pre-eminently 
a metaphysician, a theologian abstracted from the world by 
the deepest issues of thought. But nothing human was 
foreign to him. His prime interest was in man living, and 
then in all that concerns his life. Political life intensely 
interested him. He was a true patriot, but never a partisan. 
Rochester cannot forget his eloquent efforts for the country 
in the time of the war. But his view was broader still. 
When Japan was a new object of curiosity to our world, 
with its wonderful awakening, it was Dr. Robinson who 
introduced the subject to the public in a lecture replete with 
fresh information regarding the young nation. When 
Whittier was honored in Providence, Dr. Robinson's 
address, abounding in quotations as characteristic of the 
speaker as of the poet, was one of the most suggestive of the 
day. But all these tell of the student only. One could not 
walk out in the country with Dr. Robinson without being 
impressed with his interest in the farm and garden, the 
country habitation, the cattle, the horses. One friend 
remembers his surprise, when a student, at discovering that 
the theologian knew about potatoes, and discoursed on them, 
on a suitable occasion, as freely as he discussed the doctrines 
of grace. In short, he was never what he was so often 
judged to be, — a recluse, a mere student, an abstract 
thinker. Everything interested him that had real signifi- 
cance in life, but pre-eminently man. 

The great strength of his character, however, was in his 
simple faith. Theological subtleties never blinded him to 
the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of Christ. It 



AS A TRUSTEE AND A FRIEND. 345 

was natural that one of his temperament should see, first of 
all, in his reflections on God, a Holy One. Indeed, the 
strength of his soul and his power largely grew out of this 
conception of righteousness as first, last, everywhere. None 
the less the tenderness of his heart was nourished by the 
thought of God as his Father. It was with him no general 
truth. We who followed his prayers day after day — those 
prayers so wonderful in simplicity, variety, and spiritual in- 
spiration — knew that to him that Presence was real, vivid, 
and that he lived in it. No one who ever heard him speak 
of Jesus Christ, his character and work, could doubt where 
the foundations of his own faith and hope were laid. An 
earnest, careful student of the whole New Testament, with 
a spirit in him which made him so akin to the great apostle 
that the thought of Paul aroused him to many an eloquent 
burst in the class-room, he yet turned more and more to the 
Gospels, and he said again and again, " As you grow older 
and read your Bible more and more, you will find yourself 
turning to the Gospels as the source of your inspiration and 
your hope, in the life of the Master they portray. " Jesus 
Christ stood out for him as a vivid personality, and he 
bowed to Him as his Lord, and worshipped. He stood for 
the righteousness that stood first in God, and the tenderness 
that he sought in a Heavenly Father. 

It was such qualities that won the regard and reverence 
of his students, and that, seen in the nearer light of friend- 
ship, will prove an undying inspiration to those who have 
felt toward him as toward a father, and who, because they 
knew him, loved him. 



APPENDIX. 



I. CASE OF ANN T. PECK. 

II. WESTERN THEOLOGICAL INSTITUTE AT 
COVINGTON, KENTUCKY. 

III. GRADUATING ADDRESS AT NEWTON. 

IV. LECTURE-ROOM SAYINGS. 

V. LIST OF PUBLISHED WRITINGS. 



APPENDIX. 



I. 

THE CASE OF ANN T. PECK. 

OFTEN quite as much courage is required to accept as to 
reject evidence. An illustration, recalled with almost 
tender interest in his later days, occurred during Mr. Robin- 
son's pastorate in Cincinnati, and deserves mention because so 
unusual as to be almost beyond belief. The facts were fully 
recounted in a book published by the Cougregational Sunday 
School Society of those times under the title " Religion as It 
Should Be." Ann Thane Peck, a devout and intelligent girl 
of eighteen, a week or more before her death from pulmonary 
consumption, experienced an ecstasy, not uncommon in such 
cases, the remarkable peculiarity of which was that she not 
only believed she saw the Lord and heard the angels sing, but 
that her face and pillow were for some hours suffused with 
light from no external source. Mr. Robinson repeatedly had 
the story from Ann's father, a physician of Cincinnati, who 
dould see in the event only a recurrence of the supernatural 
light with which the face of Moses shone as he came down 
from the mountain of the law. The phenomenon was wit- 
nessed by several, including her pastor, a Presbyterian min- 
ister, who, like all the rest, was astounded by what he saw, 
and described it in the funeral sermon. 

A distinguished medical friend furnishes the following state- 
ment : " Human phosphorescence is a rare phenomenon. It 
is due to a disordered secretion of sweat, producing phospho- 
rescent perspiration of the skin, and has been seen in miliaria, 



350 EZEKIEL GILMAN ROBINSON. 

an inflammatory disease of the sweat glands. It has been 
known to follow eating phosphorescent fish, and a case has 
been reported in which the body-linen was made luminous by 
the perspiration after any violent exercise. It has also been 
noticed in dying persons, especially those dying of consump- 
tion, and has been observed in the human body after death. 
Cases also of luminous breath have been reported." See 
Buck's "Keference Handbook of the Medical Sciences," vol. v. 
p. 641 ; also " Index Catalogue of the Surgeon-General's Li- 
brary," under titles " Body, Human, Light from," and " Phos- 
phorescence." 

We are concerned, not with explaining the occurrence, but 
with the side-light which it throws upon the candor of Dr. 
Eobinson, who could accept duly attested facts without ac- 
counting for them. A certain openness, however, to mystical 
impressions, not uncommon in minds habitually sceptical, may 
be surmised from the footnote with which he closed his dis- 
cussion of angels : " jSTo one may positively and safely assert 
what even now is, or is not, the connection of supernatural 
beings with the mental and physical diseases whose seat 
is in a moral obliquity of the will." (Christian Theology, 
p. 115.)— Ed. 



APPENDIX. 351 



II. 

THE WESTERN THEOLOGICAL INSTITUTE OF 
COVINGTON, KENTUCKY. 

THE curious history of this ouce very promising but 
most unfortunate of theological schools has been recov- 
ered by the painstaking researches of Professors B. 0. True 
and A. J. Sage. The following sketch is made up almost 
wholly from materials that these gentlemen found in official 
reports of fifty years ago, supplemented to some extent by 
personal recollections. In a few cases I have pretty closely 
followed their words. 

A General Convention of Western Baptists, held at Cincin- 
nati in November, 1833, led to the formation of the Western 
Baptist Education Society a year later. The Executive Com- 
mittee of this Society, acting on their own responsibility and 
accepting for themselves all risks, hit on the plan of endow- 
ing the school without an appeal to the churches for money, 
by means of a speculation in land. Their plans were saga- 
ciously matured, and culminated in the purchase of an estate of 
some 370 acres situated in the rear of Covington, Kentucky, 
and overlooking the city of Cincinnati. The price agreed upon 
was $ 32,250, but only a small part of this amount was paid at 
the time of the purchase. The expectation of a rise in value 
sufficient to pay for the estate and provide an endowment for 
the future school was not disappointed. During the summer of 
1835 some 90 acres were sold for $22,500. For a time the 
prospects were not altogether favorable, but in 1838 the meas- 
ures necessary to the financial success of this venture were 
adopted with energy. Twelve acres were reserved for the 
school buildings, the remainder was platted, streets graded, 
and lots on this attractive site were offered for sale. By 1843 
lots to the value of $62,000 had been sold, a four-story build- 
ing 120 X 46 feet had been erected for the future school at a 



352 EZEKIEL GILMAN ROBINSON. 

cost of about $25,000, and the assets were .estimated at 
$126,000, while the indebtedness was only $17,000! So rapid 
the rise in value of these lands had now become that, although 
portions were sold from time to time to provide for improving 
the rest and to meet expenses of the school, the property 
retained was reckoned in 1848 to be worth, with its improve- 
ments, $200,000. Two years later the estate of 370 acres, 
which had been bought in 1835 for $32,250, was estimated at 
more than a million dollars, and since that time has probably 
trebled in value. 

It is a curious feature of the successful management that less 
than $5,000 in all, perhaps not more than $3,000, were ever 
contributed in money for this school ; and this estimate in- 
cludes $500 given annually for about three years toward the 
President's salary. Of the amount actually paid in to pur- 
chase the land, all but $15 was raised north cf the Ohio Eiver ; 
and ten of the fifteen dollars was contributed by a Northerner, 
Rev. Thomas S. MalcOm, who was then pastor in Louisville. 
About ten thousand dollars were subscribed in the South, but 
no part of this subscription was ever paid. In fact, the insti- 
tution was founded by Northern enterprise, and was located 
across the Ohio chiefly because here was a specially favorable 
opportunity for the land speculation on which the whole 
scheme was based ; but partly because the founders were not 
without hope of Southern co-operation. 

The enterprising managers of this investment postponed 
opening the school until their operations had provided a suffi- 
cient sum for carrying it on. The Institute was opened at 
length in the autumn of 1845, and was kept open until the 
disruption in 1848, of which Dr. Robinson speaks. It had 
both a literary and a theological department. Dr. R. E. Pattison 
was President, while E. G-. Robinson and Ebenezer Dodge 
were Professors in the theological department, and Asa Drury, 
earlier a Professor in Cincinnati College, had charge of the 
literary department. Dr. A. J. Sage, who as a lad attended 
the literary department for three years, says it was an ex- 
cellent school of about forty pupils, many of them connected 
with the theological department. 



APPENDIX. 353 

But the fair prospects of the Institute were wrecked by the 
storm of dissension which arose over slavery, and which reached 
its crisis as between Northern and Southern Baptists at pre- 
cisely this juncture. The Baptist State Convention of Alabama 
demanded of the Board of the Triennial Convention whether a 
slaveholder would be appointed as missionary to the heathen ; 
and the Board, located at Boston, — which the distinguished 
Southern Baptist, Dr. Jeter, declares, in his " Recollections of 
a Long Life," to have been "the most conservative of all our 
boards," — plumply replied in the negative. This was in 1844. 
In May of the next year the Southern Baptist Convention was 
formed ; and it was in the autumn of this year that the Insti- 
tute was opened in Covington. The Southern friends of the 
Institute wished Dr. Pattison to define his position. He had 
tried to be prudent, with the result that in the North he was 
called proslavery, and in the South denounced as secretly an 
abolitionist. His opinions, when disclosed, proved to be un- 
satisfactory to the Southern friends of the school. 

The control of the school was vested in sixteen Trustees, 
nine of them living north and seven south of the Ohio River. 
The Kentuckians demanded equal representation ; but this 
demand was rejected on the ground that the institution had 
been founded by Northern men with Northern funds, and that 
it was enough for Southern interests that it stood on Southern 
soil. The Southern party next required that the Trustees 
should declare in favor of slavery. Some question exists as 
to the form of words in which the demand was couched, but 
there is no question as to its purport ; the Trustees were asked 
to affirm that slavery had the support of the Bible. But the 
Trustees declined, on the ground that their business was to 
conduct a theological school, not to pronounce on slavery, pro 
or con. 

The next step made disruption inevitable. A report had 
got about that the Northern Trustees secretly designed to sell 
the property in Covington and transplant the institution 
to Northern soil. The Northern Trustees indignantly denied 
that they entertained any such secret design ; but the South- 
ern Trustees determined that the opportunity for it should be 

23 



354 EZEKIEL GILMAN ROBINSON. 

destroyed. The charter of the Institute authorized the Legis- 
lature of Kentucky to alter, amend, or repeal at pleasure. 
The Southern Trustees took advantage of this provision to 
apply to the Legislature, without knowledge of their Northern 
colleagues, for an amendment to the charter ; and an Act was 
passed raising the number of Trustees to thirty-two, naming 
the additional sixteen, and providing that thereafter no one 
residing north of the Ohio River should be eligible. The 
Southern members of the reconstituted Board now claimed 
possession of the property, and, when the claim was rejected, 
took possession by force. They obtained an order from 
court that the Rev. 0. N. Sage, Financial Agent and Manager 
of the Institution, should deliver to them the account books ; 
but Mr. Sage slipped across the Ohio to Cincinnati with the 
books, and remained there to avoid proceedings for contempt 
of court. The decision being against him in the lower courts, 
the case was carried to the Court of Appeals of Kentucky, 
where it was decided that the amendatory act was unconstitu- 
tional, inasmuch as it undertook, by naming the Trustees, to 
exercise a corporate franchise, and not merely to amend the 
charter. This court also decided that the original Trustees 
had a right to reject the amendment and to wind up the cor- 
poration, thus according to them the right to do the very thing 
which the Legislature had been appealed to to prevent. The 
case is reported in 15 Ben Monroe Reports, under the title 
" Sage v. Dillard." 

The Southern party moved that the case be reopened in the 
Court of Appeals, and pending further litigation proposed 
arbitration. The Northern party assented. Justice McLean, 
of the Supreme Court of the United States, sat as arbitrator, — 
whether with or without colleagues is not recalled, — and, after 
full hearing, decided that the property should be divided, one 
half going to the North, one half to the South. The Southern 
half was used to found a theological department or chair at 
Georgetown College in Kentucky ; the Northern share was 
mainly expended in the Fairmount enterprise, of which Dr. 
Robinson speaks ; but the library went to the college in Gran- 
ville, Ohio. 



APPENDIX. 355 

The financial management of the venture had been upon the 
whole thoroughly successful, and the school during the brief 
period of its existence did excellent work. Professor True 
states that among the most efficient members of the Board of 
Trustees were Mr. Ephraim Robins, uncle of Rev. Dr. Henry 
E. Robins, to whose unwearied and unrequited work the busi- 
ness scheme and its success were largely due ; Professor 
John Stevens, father of Professor William Arnold Stevens ; and 
the admirable financial agent, Rev. 0. 1ST. Sage, father of Hon. 
George R. Sage, judge of the United States Court for the 
Southern District of Ohio, and of Rev. Dr. A. J. Sage. Judge 
Sage was of counsel for the Northern party before the Court 
of Appeals. 

Of the thirteen years during which the Covington enterprise 
was on foot, the first ten were taken up in the development of 
a business scheme, while the last three, during which alone the 
school existed, were distracted by the " irrepressible conflict." 
The Western Baptist Education Society unquestionably ex- 
pected to establish a theological seminary in the usual way ; 
but when their own Executive Committee had once embarked 
upon the plan of setting up such a school without cost to any 
one, the Society was naturally willing to wait even ten years 
for so pleasing a scheme to realize itself. The project of 
founding a school for the ministry on a land speculation would 
never have been conceived outside the United States, and hardly 
in behalf of any but a "Western Theological Institute ; " but 
once entered upon, the project was cared for with the same 
unselfish devotion, and with maybe more than the intelligence, 
that so many schools of the sort have enjoyed. Yet not all 
the sagacity and devotion of its founders could save it from 
being one of the most pitiful failures brought about by the 
slavery conflict. Still the history of the enterprise, from the 
original conception of it, through the long prenatal period of 
financial nursing, and the brief tale of its life among men until 
its final collapse, although a painful story, and once the theme 
of mutual reproaches, is not without its humorous aspects. 
The notion of basing a school of divinity on what in these 
days would be styled " a boom ; " the threatened burst of the 



356 EZEKIEL GILMAN ROBINSON. 

boom until, as one who then lived in Kentucky had to say 
when his advice was asked, 1 the lands were worthless ; the sub- 
sequent brilliant recovery of values ; the painful but unrelaxed 
devotion of the projectors ; the future distinction of the corps 
of teachers whom a project of this kind was able to secure ; 
the seizure of the infant establishment almost as soon as the 
breath of life was known to be in it, under what proved to be a 
false color of legality, by some whose only claim to seize it 
was that they had a chance ; and, to end with, the impartial 
and equal division of the proceeds among all claimants, — is a 
satire upon the state of things in the churches of those days a 
little wilder than any humorist outside this land of liberty 
would venture to invent. But good Christians conscientiously 
took care that it should all come true. 

The foregoing sketch has been drawn from materials supplied 
for the most part by Northern men ; but I believe they spared 
no pains to get at the entire truth and to do exact justice. The 
writer alone is responsible for the use made of these materials, 
and for the interpretation put upon events. — Ed. 

1 This was in 1842, when the gentlemen spoken of spent some days at 
Covington in company with Deacon Eobins, and came away with the impres- 
sion that " everything was lost." It was a period of general prostration. It 
is recollected that bacon and ham sold that year in Cincinnati for one cent 
and a half a pound. — Ed. 



APPENDIX. 357 



III. 

GRADUATING ADDRESS AT NEWTON. 

August 24, 1842. 
ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY AS A SOURCE OF INFIDELITY. 

UNBELIEVERS have resorted to Ecclesiastical History as 
supplying thein with materials for argumentation. Ar- 
raigning Christianity at the bar of human judgment, they have 
entered the dark, silent archives of antiquity, and, arousing 
from their long sleep the witnesses of former ages, have sum- 
moned them to the stand, and suborned them to utter a testimony 
against her. They have sought to make the history of the 
Church an enemy of the Church, a foster-mother of scepticism, 
an abetter of infidelity. Thus did Gibbon ; and who shall tell 
how many hearts have been blighted and made desolate forever 
by the pestilential influence of his labors alone ? 

But infidelity in later days has found aid for itself in the 
ecclesiastical histories of writers professedly religious. Their 
histories, it is true, have been made to render a reluctant and 
unnatural service ; they nevertheless have rendered it. They 
have nursed — they are nursing still — many a feeble, stam- 
mering sceptic into a full-grown, dogmatizing infidel ; and 
what is yet more painful, they are at the present moment 
furnishing the enemies of the cross with some of their deadliest 
weapons. 

But why is this so ? Has the career of Christianity in the 
earth been such as to bring reproach on its character ? Has 
its influence been such as to render it unworthy of our love 
and respect ? Or has history been made to misrepresent it ? 

The duty of the ecclesiastical historian is to give us a faith- 
ful picture of the Church as it has actually existed in suc- 
cessive ages and amonsr different nations. To write a true 



358 EZEKIEL GILMAN EOBINSON. 

history;, lie must be a true artist ; skilful in selecting and group- 
ing, skilful in sketching and shading, and possessed of that 
intuitive sense of propriety which shall perceive at a glance 
the impression of the whole picture. He must be one who, 
in his study of the Church in any particular period of the past, 
has traced the effects of Christianity through all the diversi- 
fied channels of society. He must be, it is true, a faithful 
recorder of dates, a correct describer of persons and actions, 
but he must be something more than these, to write a truthful 
history. He must be wise in his selections from the wide fields 
of materials through which he passes, and he must be skilful 
in his use of them, or the history he shall write may be as 
false as if the persons selected had been imaginary beings, and 
the facts recorded the merest fictions. The truth of a history 
depends, not on the number or the importance of the facts 
recorded, or of the persons introduced, but on the use that is 
made of them. 

But this is a principle which most ecclesiastical historians 
have strangely neglected. They have too often written as if 
their only business was to tell us of dignitaries, of important 
transactions, and of long disputes ; of popes, cardinals, arch- 
bishops, and bishops, with their military, political, and reli- 
gious actions, and of subtle disputants and their protracted 
controversies ; but of what the transforming power of Christian- 
ity wrought among the people, they have seemed to regard it 
as not their concern to speak. The aspirants after fame, who, 
overleaping the more conscientious and devout, seated them- 
selves in the highest offices of the Church, — the slimy ser- 
pents of ambition, that, winding their loathsome track up its 
lofty columns, 

" Hung hissing at the nobler men below," — 

these are made to occupy the most conspicuous places in 
history, these are taken as the representatives of the spirit 
of Christianity in the age in which they lived. But the faith- 
ful pastors and teachers who toiled in obscurity, and led the 
people on to heaven, are left in obscurity to die and be forgot- 
ten ; their names are interred with their bones. The Johns, 



APPENDIX. 359 

the Gregories, the Benedicts, the Innocents, and the Leos that 
sat in the papal chair, and the Richelieus and the Woolseys that 
wore the cardinal's cap, all are embalmed in history ; but the 
Oberlins, the Neffs, and the Kichmonds, the Brainerds, the 
Pearces, and the Martyns, both of earlier and of later times, 
receive not so much as a passing notice. Hence has resulted 
incalculable mischief. The holy altars of the Church have 
seemed to be the nestling-places of ambition ; its turrets and 
towers, the places where cawing rooks and sometimes birds of 
prey iave built their nests unscared. 

And so it is with the controversies of the Church. To these 
is given, in some ecclesiastical histories, a prominence to which 
they are by no means entitled ; while the silent, regenerating 
influence of Christianity among the people is forgotten or 
passed over in silence. In this way, too, by partial statements 
and by unjust coloring, historians of the Church have defamed 
Christianity. They have made her, not an angel of mercy dif- 
fusing light and life through the earth, but a fiend scattering 
apples of discord and enkindling perpetual strife among all 
who bear the Christian name. 

Suppose an author like those we have spoken of, five hun- 
dred years from this, to write the ecclesiastical history of the 
United States for the first fifty years of the nineteenth cen- 
tury. He will tell of controversies and convulsions. He 
will rehearse the contentions of Unitarians with Trinitarians, 
and of theologians of the old school with those of the new. 
He will speak of the theology of Andover, the theology of 
Princeton, the theology of New Haven, and, maybe, of the 
theology of Newton. He will allude to the bitterness and 
wrath displayed between Christians at the North and their 
brethren at the South, and to churches and general assemblies 
convulsed by angry discussions. Every word he shall utter 
shall be a word of truth. But to the reader of history in the 
distant future, there will be given an impression respecting 
our times as wide from the truth as the east is from the west. 
To such a reader, sitting in his silent study and reflecting on 
what he has read, the influence of Christianity in our day 
shall appear to have been disastrous in the extreme. He shall 



360 EZEKIEL GILMAN ROBINSON. 

look back over the past, but see not one of the hundreds of 
thousands of humble worshippers that crowd the temple gates 
of our land on a Sabbath morning ; he shall hear not one of 
the pungent heart-searching sermons we hear, not a word of 
the ten thousand prayers that daily ascend from as many 
altars like grateful incense up to God, not a syllable of the 
triumphant utterings of Christianity on the death-beds of 
departing Christians. He shall see nothing but high, thick, 
whirling clouds of controversial dust ; shall hear nothing but 
the loud and angry words of heated disputants ; and shaking 
his head with a melancholy air, he shall mournfully murmur 
to himself, " If this be Christianity, talk not to me of its 
divinity." 

But every one knows that such a reader's impressions re- 
specting our times would be utterly false. Every one should 
know that similar impressions respecting the past are equally 
false. 



APPENDIX. 361 



IV. 
LECTURE-ROOM SAYINGS. 

THE curt sentences with which Dr. Robinson enlivened his 
discussions sometimes overstate his meaning. This is not 
merely incidental, but it is a considerable part of the merit of 
his aphorisms. They struck and stick because they were shot 
with such excess of vigor. Just this merit belongs to many 
sayings of Paul and eveu of Jesus, and makes them so memo- 
rable. But allowance must in all cases be made for the hyper- 
bole. The specimens from the theological lecture-room were 
mostly supplied by Professor T. W. Hopkins, of Auburn 
Theological Seminary, and by Professor B. O. True, of the 
Rochester Seminary; those from Brown University were fur- 
nished by the Rev. W. H. P. Faunce, of New York, A. G. 
Langley, A. M., of Newport, Rhode Island, and Rev. M. F 
Johnson, of Middleborough, Massachusetts. — Ed. 

AT ROCHESTER. 

Never study theology in cold blood. 

When a scientific man comes along, I say, Tip up your cart 
here, and let us examine what you have. 

Gentlemen, if any of you have Barnes's Notes, don't give 
them away ; burn them. 

Physical science will undoubtedly smash some of our crockery 
gods. 

The verbal theory of inspiration is a gigantic swindle, which 
has been carried on long enough, and must be riddled through 
and through. 

We have a cleai-er idea of the scope and range of Christianity 
than any of the Apostles had. 

The existence of God is one of those old truths that become 
new in the whirligig of time. 



362 EZEKIEL GTLMAN KOBINSON. 

If God exists, lie must be somewhat corresponding to our 
consciousness. 

The German phrase " God consciousness " rightly means the 
response of the mind to the evidence of a Divine existence and 
will. 

The doctrine of the Trinity is not to be preached formally. 
It is like the primitive rocks : sometimes they lie very deep ; 
sometimes they are so near the surface that they may be 
scratched by the ploughshare. 

It is nonsense to say that God hates sin but loves the 
sinner. 

Logic leads to necessitarianism ; consciousness attests free 
agency. 

A man is bound to obey his conscience at the peril of his 
soul's salvation. 

By the very nature of evil it is inexplicable. 

There is a good streak left in the devil yet. 

In the incarnation Christ became as nearly related to us as 
in his pre-existent state he was to the Father. 

To say that sin is an infinite evil, and therefore only an 
infinite being could make atonement, is infinite nonsense. 

We put our trust in one who has proved himself able to save 
himself and every one who trusts in him. This is the gospel in 
a nutshell. 

We are saved through the enforcement of law, every mother's 
son of us. 

Every man honest with himself knows pretty well where he 
is going to. 

Judgment is an eternal process. 

Probably, like scarred twigs, we shall forever bear the traces 
of our sins. 

Mercy never cheats justice. 

The fundamental argument for eternal punishment is the 
reproductive power of evil. 

Moral penalty is through the moral constitution. Torments 
of conscience will alone be as a sea of fire. 

Heaven is not a place of inactivity : it is not to be compared 



APPENDIX. 363 

to a grasshopper on a shingle, floating down-stream on a bright 
summer day. 

Every Christian man has power to bind and loose men's 
consciences. 

Churchism keeps up the middle wall of partition which God 
has abolished forever. 

AT BROWN. 
(From Mr. Fauiice's Memorial Address.) 

Deity need not send a policeman after the sinner ; the sinner 
carries the policeman inside, 

Man without religion is a barrel without hoops. 

Soul-liberty is not toleration ; it is a natural right. 

You cannot change a man by offering him a reward. You 
cannot make sheep love stones by shaking them in a basket. 

The glory of Christianity is the boundless reach of its 
motives. 

No man begins his life utterly anew ; he finds himself like a 
top already spinning. 

There has never been a great nature without reverence for 
God. 

As soon as any church says that it alone is the true church 
and there is no other, take your hat. 

Disciplined intellect, gentlemen, asks no favor but that of 
God. 

(From Mr. Lauglej's collection.) 

From Locke's time no treatise on Theology has been written 
in England worth turning the pages of. 

All the assumptions of pantheism arise from misunderstanding 
of the mind's limitations. 

A man's mind should be like an elephant's trunk, strong 
enough to root up an oak, delicate enough to pick up a needle. 

The man who makes up his mind to believe only what can 
be scientifically proved might as well pack up. 

Byron's "Don Juan" smells of gin all the way through. 

The whirligig of thought has brought us around to the origi- 
nal dunghill on which Lucretius founded his philosophy. 



364 EZEKIEL GILMAN ROBINSON. 

[Pauspermism is] not Minerva from a living brain, but Ve- 
nus from the foam of the sea. 

A man's principles and emotions come out and sit on his 
features. 

You can rip through an Oriental language in a very short 
time. 

All attempts to stimulate the brain [by liquor, etc.] come 
back with tremendous discount. 

There is a root of truth in old realism. Nominalism throws 
two or three pebble-stones into the cog-wheel of thought which 
continually make some creaking. 

Happiness is consciousness of unimpeded movement. 

The religion that finds you will hold you, if you are an 
honest man. 

Alexander's and Wayland's idea is that conscience carries a 
sort of locomotive head-light which throws light on its own 
path. JSs geht nicht. 

You cannot accept any authority unless it vindicates itself 
in your moral consciousness. 

If you have not mind, you cannot have morals. 

Conscience is the invisible police that you can't bribe. 

Conscience is not a special kind of cork-screw on the side of 
an old jack-knife. 

A crow from feeding on carrion comes to regard it as the 
greatest delicacy in the world. 

A man is afraid of his conscience just as an old duck is 
afraid of a gun. The duck pops under the water and remains 
there as long as he can ; so man keeps out of the way of his 
conscience as long as he can. 

Many a man suddenly cries out, " Cursed be the day that I 
saw the man who has led me astray." 

The constituent laws of personal being antedated the laws 
of Moses. 

If the ethical teachings of the Bible were made, then we 
should outgrow them. They simply unveil what the moral 
nature is, or ought to be. 

If you give all hell the freedom of the universe, will it 
make hell any better ? 



APPENDIX. 365 

An idea is quite prevalent that moral law is a sort of scare- 
crow which Deity has set up in the cornfields of this world, 
and which he will take down whenever he thinks it safe to 
do so. 

If a man controls himself, he goes through the world sing- 
ing like a lark, singing all the time ; and God made it to be so. 

If you assume that each volition has a precedent and causa- 
tive volition, you are on a stairway with no end to it. 

Many a man is moral who has no virtue. 

The highest emblem of heaven is a happy home. 

Never seek a place; seek preparation. 

Christianity will digest the other religions. 

The best evidences for Christianity have been disclosed by 
its enemies. 

A man is hardly better than a heathen who will sneer at a 
heathen before his idol. 

I should not want to sit in judgment on the heathen. 

Authority and faith are totally irrelevant terms. There 
may be authority for a certain course of conduct; but for a 
belief such authority is impossible. 

Authority cannot compel assent to evidence ; much less con- 
sent to dogma. 

Truth always takes care of itself, and does this simply be- 
cause it is a revelation of what is. 

Modern atheism is largely due to the use in modern science 
of the word " law " in the sense of " cause." . . . Law is not 
force. 

Not hope of heaven but fitness for heaven is the idea of 
Christianity. God is not the caterer of the universe, as the 
governmental theory of atonement virtually makes him. 

(From Mr. Johnson's collection.) 

One form of the Anselmic theory, — so much merit spooned 
out. 

A boy backs up into a corner, and calls the corner the begin- 
ning of all things. 

A man lived by rule, weighing out his food; and when he 
took cold, he collapsed like a cabbage-leaf. 



366 EZEKIEL GILMAN ROBINSON. 

The whole soul is wrapped around a cut finger. 

A smutty idea is connected with divine words ; and when 
these are recalled, this imp peeps over the shoulder and says, 
"I'm here." 

Consciousness is like the ocean, ever restless ; but, like the 
river, ever running. 

I feel no sensation: but the sensation feels me. 



APPENDIX. 367 



V. 
PUBLISHED WRITINGS. 

THE titles which follow are of all the known published 
writings of Dr. Robinson, except book-notices and 
articles in the daily or weekly press. 

BOOKS. 

Revised translation of Neander's Planting and Training of 
the Christian Church : Sheldon & Co., New York, 1865. 

Yale Lectures on Preaching : Henry Holt & Co., New York, 
1883. 

Principles and Practice of Morality: Silver, Burdett, & Co., 
Boston, 1888. 

Christian Theology : E. R. Andrews, Rochester, 1894. 

Christian Evidences : Silver, Burdett, & Co., Boston, 1895. 

ARTICLES. 

" Theology," — " Johnson's Encyclopedia," first edition ; re- 
vised for last edition by Pres. A. H. Strong, D. D., LL. D. 

" Experimental Theology," Inaugural Address at Rochester, 
— " Christian Review," October, 1853 ; also in appendix of 
" Christian Theology." 

" The Relation of the Church and the Bible," — " Madison 
Avenue Lectures," American Baptist Publication Society, 1867. 

" Ritualism in the Church of England," — " Baptist Quar- 
terly," January, 1869. 

" The Kind and Extent of Ministerial Culture demanded in 
our Time and in our Churches," — Proceedings of National 
Baptist Educational Convention, 1870, pp. 139-149. 

" Reminiscences of Dr. Hackett at Providence, Newton, and 
Rochester," — " Memorials of Horatio Balch Hackett." 



368 EZEKIEL GILMAN KOBINSON. 

" The Sabbath and Free Institutions/' — " Sabbath Essays," 
Boston, 1879, Congregational Publishing Society. 

" Moral Law in its Eelations to Physical Science and to 
Popular Religion," — Boston Monday Lectures entitled " Christ 
and Modern Thought " : Roberts Brothers, Boston, 1881. 

" Men, Made, Self-made, and Unmade," — Phillips Exeter 
Lectures," 1885-86. 

" The Inspiration of the Apostles," — " Baptist Quarterly 
Review," January, 1886. 

" How I was Educated," — " Forum," December, 1886. 
In " Homiletic Review " : — 

" The Holiness of God," a sermon, May, 1884. 
"Ministerial Education," May, 1885 ; 
" How may the Ministry Raise its Efficiency and Useful- 
ness ? " September, 1886. 
" Plow can the Pulpit Best Counteract the Influence of 

Modern Scepticism?" March, 1887. 
"Training Men to Preach," December, 1891. 
" Training Men to Preach," February, 1893. 
" Mr. Hazard's Philosophical Writings, " in " Life and Ser- 
vices of the Hon. Rowland Gibson Hazard," LL. D., pam- 
phlet, J. A. & R. A. Reid, Providence, 1888. 



INDEX. 



BY REV. ROBERT KERR ECCLES, M. D. 



Abbotsford, 91. 

Academy, Day's, studies at, 8. 

Adam, defective views regarding, 181. 

Adaptation, want of, 284. 

Address, graduating, at Newton, 357. 

Adjustment in age to new conditions, 251. 

Age, characteristics in, 136. 

Agent of Tract Society, 18. 

Agnostic, slightly, 174. 

Agnosticism, Philosophy of Nescience, 
"206, 300. 

Albany, preaches in, 67. 

Alexander's Ethics, 364. 

Alpha Delta Phi Society, controversy 
with, 15. 

Alps, 88, 96. 

A. M., new conditions for, 120. 

Ambrose, 88. 

Analogy, Butler's, teaches, 52. 

Analytic cast of mind, 231, 310. 

Anderson, Charles, 149. 

Anderson, President M. B., invjtes to 
Rochester, 43, 157; wishes to locate 
seminary, 70; conflict with, 71; esti- 
mate of, 72; range of studies, 73; his 
chapel-talks, 74; a fellow-student. 158. 

Anderson, T. D., D.D., 138; on char- 
acter, 143; on pulpit-manner, 263. 

Andover, Theory of Atonement, 55, 227 ; 
lectures, 132. 

Andrews, President E. B., D.D., LL.D., 
Doctor of Philosophy, degree of, con- 
ferred under, 121; on " A President of 
Brown University," 269. 

Andrews, Mr. E. R., incidents supplied 
by, 46; purchases "Christian Review," 
65; publishes "Christian Theologv," 
105. 

Annihilationism, 203. 

Annuity and gift, 137. 

Anonymous estimate, 234. 

Anselm on Atonement, 54, 59, 365. 

Anthropology, 180. 

Aphorisms, hyperbole of, 361. 

Apologetics, 169. 

Apologetics and Evidences, lectureship at 
Crozer, 134. 



Apostles' view narrower than ours, 361. 
Appearance, on going to Rochester, 48 

note; at maturity, 134, 143; in pulpit, 

263, 335. 
Archetypal man, the, 306. 
Argyle^ Duke of, 95. 
Arminians, 180. 

Arnold, Kev. Dr. Albert N., 13. 
Arnold, Dr. Thomas, 93, 258, 260. 
Ashmore, Dr. W., 37, 232, 240. 
Asperity softened, 125. 
Associational philosophy, 297. 
Atheism, modern, explained, 365. 
Atonement, 54, 59, 189, 216, 217, 281. 
Attleboro Church invites to preach, 20. 
Attributes of God, doctrine of, 173; new 

classification of, 54, 174; relation to 

essence, 17*3. 
Auburn, Mount, Cincinnati, house at, 41. 
Authority, little regard for, 234, 253; 

sources of, 252; and faith, 365. 
Authorship surrendered for teaching, 246. 
Autobiography begun, v ; broken off, 122. 
Average minds, respect for, 323. 
A vermis, Lake, 84. 
Awe of students, 277. 



Baccalaureate sermon, the first, 264. 

Bacon, Miss, Shakespeare theories, 94. 

Baise, 84. 

Baldwin, Mark, 298. 

Ballet, at opera, 85. 

Baltimore, preaching in, 135. 

Bancroft, George, a speech, 99. 

Baptism, an odd, 28; strange administra- 
tion of, 96; office of, 201; of infants, 
82, 201. 

Baptist, a genuine, 207; Congress, speaks 
at, 135; denomination, a credit to, 156. 

Baptized, 12. 

Barnes's Notes, 361. 

Beckley, Rev. Dr. John F., 246. 

Beecher, Dr. Lyman, his manner, 38. 

Beginning of things, a bov's idea, 365. 

Behrends. A. J. F.. D.D., on "A Teacher 
of Theology," 223. 



24 



370 



INDEX. 



Belligerency, 328. 
Benedict, Professor W. R., 246. 
Beneficiaries, care of, 75. 
Benevolence, Divine, 174, 175. 
Berlin, 96. 

Bernard, St., Pass of, 88. 
Bible, to be treated as a whole, 172; not 
inerrant, 172; Union, American, 56. 

Bibliotheca Sacra, 65, 70. 

Billingsgate, dinner at, 82. 

Binding and loosing, 363. 

Bishop, diocesan, 201. 

Bishop of Ripon, 282. 

Boards, divisions in, at Brown, 121. 

Body, resurrection of, 204. 

Boldness, 206. 

"Bone-work," 153. 

Bonn, 89. 

Boston, 131, 137; first journey to, 9. 

Boston City Hospital, dies in^ 137. 

Boston University, lectures at, 282. 

Botany, professorship of, established, 273. 

Boyish pranks, impatience of, 236, 277. 

Bradley, Chief Justice, 13, 115. 

Brain stimulants, evil, 364. 

Bridal trip, 30. 

Bridge, Natural, 30. 

Bridgman, Rev. C. De Witt, D.D., 67. 

Brieg, 88. 

Briggs, Professor C. A., 97, 205. 

Broadus, Dr. J. A., 30. 

Brock, Rev. Dr. W., 81. 

Bronson, W., alumni poem, 134. 

Brotherhood of Christ, 344 ; of man, 
318. 

" Brothers, United," a member of, 14. 

Brown University, enters, 13 ; condition 
at entering. 15; resident graduate at, 
19; first call to presidency of, 97; re- 
fuses presidency of, 100; invitation re- 
peated, 106; presidency of, accepted, 
107; condition nf ; then,' 107, 269; Cor- 
poration of, divided, 107, 270; conduct 
of students at, 108; discipline, 109, 
277; improvement, 109; narrow range 
of instruction, 109; lack of profes- 
sors, 110; lack of buildings, 110; its 
library, 110; dormitories, 111; gas 
introduced, 111 ; campus put in order, 
111; surplus income, 112; physical 
laboratory built, 112 ; Executive 
Committee, 112; Slater Hall, 113; 
Library Building, 113, 272; Sayles 
Hall, 114; ball-ground, 115; grading 
of grounds, 114, 278; University Hall 
renovated, 115; Wilson Hall, 116; 
Ladd Observatory, 117; new profes- 
sors, 117, 273; elections, 119; Ph.D. 
proposed, 120, 274; faction, 119, 121, 
270,286; religious life at, 122; lectures 
on modern thought and religion, 135; 
excellency of work at, 248; acceptance 
of presidency of, regretted by many, 
249 ; reputation on becoming president 



of, 270; difficulties as president of, 270, 
276; business management, 271; ma- 
terial advance, 272; bearing among 
men, 273 ; educational advance, 274; 
university extension, 275; trouble with 
faculty, 276; relation to students, 277; 
summary of improvements, 278; psy- 
chological laboratory at, 298; an exem- 
plification of its training, 315. 

Brown, John Carter, 113. 

Brown, Samuel Emmons, 244. 

Brown, Dr. T. E., 131, 188. 

Buckland, Dr. R. J. W., 103, 166. 

Buffalo Street, old building in, 38, 70, 
211. 

Burgess, Bishop, 13, 24 note. 

Burial, place of, 138. 

Burleson, Dr. Rufus C, 37; the first ex- 
perience in teaching, 239. 

Burns, Robert, cottage of, 92. 

Burroughs, Roswell, gives Neander 
Library, 62. 

Bushnell, Rev. Dr. Horace, 196; com- 
parison with, 253. 

Byron, 363. 



Cabell, Dr. W. B., 30. 

Caldwell, Dr. S. L., 106, 265. 

Call, to Norfolk, Virginia, 23 ; to Coving- 
ton, Kentucky, 33 ; to Rochester, 39 ; 
to Cincinnati, 39; to Rochester Theo- 
logical Seminary, 43; first, to Brown 
University, 96; second, to Brown, 100; 
third, to Brown, 106. 

Calling and election, 180. 

Calvary Church, New York, 103. 

Calvin and Titian, 89. 

Cambridge, Mass., pastor at, 32. 

Cambridge, Eng., 90. 

Campaarna, fox-hunt on, 87. 

Campbell, Thomas, "Pleasures of Hope," 
quoted, 26. 

Canal boat. 34. 

Candor, 343. 

"Cane Rush," a, 108. 

Cant, contempt for. 220, 234. 

Capua, 85. 

Carlyle, Thomas, his French Revolution, 
95; fascination exercised by, 238; uses 
ridicule like, 239. 

" Carpenter-phraseology," 170. 

Carpenter, Bishop W. Boyd, D.D., 
LL.D., 282. 

Carriage, journey by, 107. 

Caswell, Professor, of Brown, interview 
with, 12; president of Brown, 269. 

Catacombs, 86. 

Cathedrals, 90. 

Cavour, 88. 

Chace, Professor George I., 269, 275. 

Chairs, fills two, at Rochester, 257. 

Chalmers, Thomas, 92. 

Chaplain at University of Virginia, 29. 



INDEX. 



571 



Characteristics, as student, 25; personal, 
123, 133, 139, 143, 207, 218, 238, 240, 
254, 322, 323, 341; as pastor, 152, 158, 
note; as preacher, 148, 149, 155, 150, 
163 26J 203, 327, 335; as teacher, 104, 
174' 212 223, 233, 253,257,275,361; 
as thinker, 169, 200, 213, 227, 239, 281, 
292, 298, 310, 312. 328, 350; as ad- 
ministrator, 100, 271, 276, 204, 321, 
339. 
Chase, Dr. Iran, 104. 
Chase, Dr. W. T., 135. 
Chester, England, 93. . _ .. 

Chicago University, Professor of Ethics 
and" Apologetics" at, 135; his work at, 
250, 252, 315; its contrast with older 
institutions, 320; first year in, 320; 
qualifications to be member of its 
faculty, 320; offers resignation, 322; 
impression left, 323. 
Childhood, 3. 
Children, interest in, 152. 
Cholera, 41. 

Christ, humiliation of, 55, 187; regard 
for, 142; his moral ideal, 143; imitates 
the masculine virtues of, 143 ; his per- 
son, orthodox view of, 187 ; relation of 
natures in, 187; self-limitation in, 188; 
the nature assumed, 188; divine basis 
of personality, 189 ; atonement by, 189 ; 
view of atonement criticised, 193; the 
"larger," 194; how bears penalty, 
196; "his return, 203; his resurrection, 
204. 
Christian Ethics, course in, 320; evi- 
dences, 250; religion ^w^", ^ n ; 
" Review," 46, 49, 53, 64, 6G, 69, 70, 

257 
"Christian Theologv," preparation and 

printing of, 105, 167,248. | 

Christianity, 365 ; " Republican, Ma- , 
goon's, 40 ; Evidences of, 134, 250, 
281, 320, 367; relation of, to ethics, zav. 
Christmas^ at Queen's Arms, 78 ; a, 

evening, 342. 
Christologv. 55, 187. . 

Church, at Pawtucket, unites with, \i ; 
prepares for a new, 42: American, at 
Berlin, 99; outgrowth of Judaism, 201 ; 
its constitution, 201; function of, 201; 
its ordinances, 201. 
Church History, chair of, filled, 103. 
Churchism, 363. 

Cincinnati, at Walnut Street Church, 36; 
pastor in, 41, 147; Ninth Street Church 
in,' pastorate of, 41, 148, 240; its prom- 
inence there, 149; proposed Theological 
School, 43. ., . 

Class of 1838 at Brown, 13; President 

Wavland's opinion of, 25. 
Class-room, unhealthy, 58; his manner 
in. 232. 283, 287 ; an exercise described, 
283, 287; power in, 314. 
Clay, Henry, 23. 



Clement, Church of St., 86. 
Climacteric in a preacher, 47. 
" Cobs, down with house of," 343. 
Coddling at Norfolk, 29. 
( loffin, Mr., his generous offer, 77. 
('(ignition of matter, 295. 
Colby, Gardner, 106. 
Coleridge, 50. 

" ( lolleague at Chicago, As a." 319. 
College, shall he enter V 8; almost aban- 
dons thought of, 10; awakened zeal to 
enter. 11; attempt to enter, 12; for 
what purpose? 13; badly prepared for, 
13; enters, 13; classmates, 13; driven 
from, by illness, 13; societies at, 14; 
classical department weak, 15; acquire- 
ments on leaving, 18; resident gradu- 
ate, 19; efforts, their characteristics, 
25; his own estimate, 26; dyspeptic at, 
20; his bearing in, 27. 
Colleges, East Day Sermon, 204. 
Collegians, attitude towards, 277. 
Cologne Cathedral, 100. 
Colosseum at Rome, 85. 
Commencement of 1890, 134; incident at 

a, 144. 
Commons, British House of, 95. 
Comparison with contemporary theologi- 
ans, 253. 
Conant, T. J., 56, 160, 211. 
Conceptualism, 299. 
Concord, N. H., journey to, 9. 
Cone, Dr. Spencer, 67. 
Conference of London ministers, 80. 
" Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit," 50. 
Confidence, increasing, in theological re- 
search, 54. 
Conscience, 303, 362, 364. 
Conscientiousness, intellectual, 150. 
Consciousness, 295, 366. 
Considerateness, in criticism, 239; for 

dull men, 323. . . 

Consolidation of Theological Seminaries 

proposed, 74. 
Contemporaries, in college, recollections, 

24. 
Contributors, their spirit, 5. , 

Controversies of church, undue promi- 
nence of, 359. 
Convention, Baptist Triennial, last meet- 
ing of, 31 ; Southern Baptist, formed, 
353. 
Conversion, 12. 

Cook, Dr., of Tract Society, lb. 
Cooper, novels of, 10. 
Corniche Road, 84. 
Corwin, William H., 156. 
Cough, a threatening, 58. 
Councils, advisory, 201. 
1 Counsellor, a, 340. 

' Country, his love for the, 6; benefits 
I of, 7'. a a 

I Course at Rochester made three years, 
' 68; suggested four years, 245. 



572 



INDEX. 



Courtesy, his, 152, 239. 

Covington, Western Theological Institu- 
tion, lire at, 7, note ; accepts professor- 
ship at, 33; journey thither, 33; faculty 
at, 35; troubles at, 36; leaves, 37; noted 
students, 37; manner at, 232, 239; ad- 
ditional note from, 239; history of, 351 ; 
how founded, 351; how ruined, 353; 
legislation, litigation, arbitration, par- 
tition, 354; financial success, 355; ma- 
terial for humorist, 355. 

Crane, Rev. C. B., D.D., reminisceuce, 
236. 

Creation, 177. 

Critical, rather than constructive, 164,310 ; 
toward all theologies, 227 ; for student's 
sake, 239. 

Criticism, fierce delight in, 234; on au- 
thors, 311; higher, anticipated, 247. 

" Crockery Gods," 361. 

Crow and carrion, 364. 

Crozer Theological Seminary, 74, 134; 
lecture at, 135, 250. 

Curriculum, studied outside of, 25; at 
Brown, adjusted, 119. 

Curtis, Moses, acquaintance with, at 
Hampton, 10; acquaintance with, at 
college, 11; his death, 11. 

Cushman, Charlotte, 87. 

Customs, Southern, 28. 



D. D., 49. 

Dartmouth College, 116. 

Darwinism, possible attitude towards, 

182. 
D'Aubign^, Dr. Merle, 50 ; tea with, 84, 

88. 
Daughter, illness of, 133. 
Day of prayer for colleges, sermon, 123. 
Day's Academy, 8. 
Deacon, an uneasy, 32. 
Dean, Dr. H. W., physician, 71. 
"Death" discussed, 59. 
Death, his, 137. 
Debate, value to students, 289; tried in 

class-room, 289. 
Debater, a skilful, 25. 
Debating Societies, the old, 14, 289. 
Debating Society, German, 98. 
DeBlois, Dr. A. K., President, his testi- 
mony, 291. 
Decrees, Divine, 59, 179. 
Degrees, honorary, 49. 
Deity of Christ, 187. 
Delabarre, Professor E. B., articles by, 

298. 
Denunciation, sometimes employed, 239. 
Depravity, native, 185; realistic theory 

of, 185'; less than total, 216. 
Derby, Earl of, 95. 
Derivatist, ethical, 304. 
Destructive rather than constructive, 

228, 292. 



Details hastily passed over, 310. 

Detention, a fateful, 24. 

Determinism, 179. 

Devil, good streak in, 362. 

Dictations in class-room, 202, 283, 288, 
309. 

Dignity. 239, 314. 

Diman, Professor J. L., 275. 

Disciplinarian, as a, 109, 277. 

Discouragements as student, 9, 10, 13. 

"Discourse of Religion," T. Parker's, 50. 

Discourses on Scepticism, 42, 47, 157, 
329. 

Discussions of the future, 237; in class- 
room at Rochester, 235, 237, 245, 284, 
330; less frequent at Brown, 283, 285, 
287; with resident graduates, 246, 290. 

Disease, the mortal, 137; notified of. 322; 
conduct under, 122, 322. 

Disembodied spirits, 203. 

Disraeli, 95. 

Dixon, Dr. A. C. 135. 

Docetism, 187. 

Doctor of Divinity conferred, 49. 

Doctorate of Philosophy, 119, 274. 

Doctorate of Laws, by Brown, 49 ; by 
Harvard, 49. 

Doctrines, later, of his scheme, 207; dis- 
cussion often fragmentary, 223. 

Dodge, Dr. Ebenezer, 74, 239, 352. 

Dogmas discarded, 216. 

Don Juan, 363. 

Dorner, Dr. J. A., 97. 

Doubtful of himself, 331. 

Douglass, Frederic, 66. 

Downer, Rev. Prof. J. R., 37, 240. 

Dresden, Sistine Madonna at, 96. 

Drive of three weeks, 107. 

Drunkenness, Scotch, 92. 

Drury, Professor Asa, 35, 352. 

Dualist, a, 302. 

Dull men, consideration for, 323. 

Dumfries, Scotland, 92. 

Dunblane, Scotland, 91. 

Duncan, Mr., his gift, 130. 

Duties, variety and number of, 257. 

Dyspepsia at college, 26. 



ECCLESIOLOGY, 201. 

Edinburgh, 91; University of, 92. 

Editor, of this volume, the parts proposed 
for himself, 5; notes bv, 3, 5, 8, 13, 27, 
31, 37, 44, 46, 49, 66,*79, 97, 104, 105, 
107, 118, 122, 123, 125, 150, 151, 153, 
157, 158, 167, 211, 219, 220, 233, 237, 
238, 299, 323, 349, 351, 361 ; of " Chris- 
tian Review," see " Christian Re- 
view." 

Education, badness of early, 5, 8, 9. 

Educational leader, characteristics as, 
275. 

Educator rather than teacher, 234. 

Edwards, Jonathan, resemblance to, 197, 



INDEX. 



373 



207; liis view of will, 179; his view of 
first apostasy, 185. 

Effort, sincere, encouraged, 2G0, 323. 

Electives, principles of, 340. 

Elisha, playful allusion, L53. 

Eloquence, defined, 155; his own, 155, 
163, 261,263, 329, 335. 

Emergency met, 7 note, 40. 

Emery, Joseph, city missionary, 154. 

Emotion, reluctance to show, 123. 

Endowing Rochester, 52, 75, 103, 1G0 ; 
Brown University, 130. 

English speech, 212, 273, 332; grammar, 
awakened interest in, 6. 

Eschatology, 203. 

Essence, divine, 173. 

Essentials grasped, 310. 

Eternal punishment, 205. 

Ethical teachings of Bible, 364. 

Ethics, teaches, 250, 281, 303; and the- 
ology inseparable, 225; "relation of 
philosophic to Christian," lectures, 282; 
greatest in, 21)2, 303; school of Deriva- 
tive, 304; intuitional, 305; most valu- 
able part of, 307. 

Europe, journev in, 77; in, 243. 

Evidences of Christianity, 50, 134, 250, 
281,320, 305, 3G7; how taught, 250. 

Evil inexplicable, 302. 

Evolution, attitude towards, 182. 

Existence of God, arguments for, 169. 

Experience, early religious, 12. 

Experimental Theology, an address, 49. 

Extemporaneous, sermon, his first, 45; 
preacher, the foremost, 261; expositor 
of philosophy, an excellent, 282; de- 
bate neglected, 289. 

Eye, 314. 



Facility of thinking, early slowness, 25. 

Facts a finality. 229. 

Faculty, at Covington, 35, 38; at Roches- 
ter refilled, 57, 103 ; at Brown enlarged, 
117; at Brown divided, 276; at Chi- 
cago helped, 319, 321. 

Failure, a, in preaching, 140. 

Fairbairn, Principal A^M., 133. 

Fairmount Theological Institution, 43; 
loss through, 44; address at, 153. 

Faith, doctrine of, 199; a reasoned and 
reasonable, 225; "and Authority," 
lecture on, 308: a helper in, 313. 

Falernian wine. 84. 

Fall, inexplicable, 182; men inherit re- 
sults, 182. 

Fall of man, 182. 

False teacher, 364. 

Farm, paternal, 3; early life on, 6; fire 
upon, 7. 

Farmer, desires to be, 8. 

Father, 3, 4. 

Fatherhood of God, 217, 344. 

Faunce, Rev. Dr. W. H. P., 138, 335, 361. 



Fay, Theodore, 99. 

features, 143. 

federal Theory, 59. 

Feelings, his, 123, 140, 342. 

Fellowships, founding of, 274. 

Female education, its initial difficulties, 
339. 

Ferrara, Duchess of, 89. 

Fever, attack of typhoid, 69. 

Figure, his a striking, 218. 

Financial crisis, 62; success at Rochester, 
166; at Brown, 130, 278. 

linger cut and sold, 365. 

Fire, on paternal farm, 7; at Covington, 
7 note. 

Flogged at school, 0. 

Florence, 87. 

Foppery, his contempt for, 40. 

Force, primal and personal, 109. 

Foresight of ideas, 213, 313. 

Forum, 80. 

Foster, John, his words applied, 126. 

Foster, YV. E., 275. 

Four vears' course suggested, 245. 

Fox How, 93. 

Fox, Norman, D.D., 235. 

Francke Orphan House, 100. 

Freedom, mental, love for, 219; of will, 
real, lost, 184, 

Freeman, Rev. Zenas, 02, 63. 

Freshness, wonderful, 257. 

Friend, a, 341. 

Friends, his early, 14, 20. 

Friendship with Ilackett, 125. 

Frost, ravages of, 88. 

Fulton, Rev. Justin D., 81. 

Funds, increase in, 130, 100, 278 ; his un- 
fitness for collecting, 273. 

Funeral, his first service, 28; his own, 
138. 

Future life and present connected, 203. 

Future punishments, 205. 



Galileo, 87. 

Gammell, Professor William, LL.D., 10, 
129. 

Gardening, fond of, 136. 

Gardiner, Judge, 60. 

Generation, spontaneous, 177; eternal, 
194. 

Genesis, its early chapters, 214. 

Geneva, 84. 

Genoa, 84. 

German, study of, 97; theological stu- 
dents, 98; thought referred to, 298. 

Gess, 56. 

Gibbon, 357. 

Gilmore, Rev. Dr. J. H., teaches Hebrew, 
101. 

Gladstone, 95. 

Glasgow, 92. 

Glover, Henry R., 33. 

God, our conceptions of, 173; in Christ, 



374 



INDEX. 



immanent in humanity, 197; change 
in, 215; transcriDt of, 306; behind all, 
309; fatherhood of, 217, 3-44; as Holy, 
345 ; his existence, 361, 362 ; reverence 
for, 363. 

God-consciousness, 362. 

Goddard, W. E., teaches Rhetoric at 
Brown, 16. 

Golden wedding, 136. 

Goodspeed, Professor J. S., 290. 

Gordon, Dr. A. J., his genealogical in- 
vestigations, 3. 

Gospels, aged turn to, 345. 

Governmental theory of atonement, 59, 
365. 

Graduate, resident at Brown, 19 ; instruc- 
tion urged at Brown, 274; instruction 
begun at Brown, 281. 

Graduating address at Newton, 357. 

Graduation, his dissertation at, 26. 

Grammar, 5. 

Grant, General, a point like, 122. 

Greek studies, 12,36. 

Greek-letter societies, 15. 

Green, Arnold, LL.D., 134. 

Green, Professor S. S., 115. 

Greg, on punishment of innocent, 193. 

Griindelwald glacier, 96. 

Grundmann's portrait, 131. 

Guilt, of race, 184; first, then depravitv, 
185; no transfer to Christ, 196. 

Gymnasium, Lyman, 272, 278. 



Hackett, Horatio B., 16, 19, 20, 21, 
103, 104, 107, 166, 244; his tribute to 
Dr. Robinson, 125; a tribute to, 138. 

Hague, Rev. William, D.D., 147. 

Harris, D.D., Prof. George, 133. 

Hale, Joseph, his Academv, 11. 

Hall. Manning 281; Rhode Island, 110, 
112, 272, 278; Sayles, 114, 272, 278; 
Slater, 113, 272, 278; Universitv, 115, 
272, 278; Wilson, 116, 272, 278. 

Hall, G. Stanley, 298. 

Hall, Robert, studies stvle of, 238. 

Halle 99. 

Hallock, Dr., of Tract Society, 18. 

Hamilton, the Institutions at, 49, 52, 74. 

Hamilton, Sir William, 53, 59; influence 
of his teaching, 169 ; his lectures, 309 ; 
his eye, 314. 

Hampton, New, school at, 9; arrival at, 
10; room-mate at, 10; stud}' of Latin 
grammar at, 10; a teacher there, 10; 
an inspiring acquaintance at, 10; 
changed, 12. 

Happiness, 364, 365. 

Harper, President W. R., 135, 138; ac- 
count of colleague, 319. 

Harper's Ferry, 30. 

Harris, Professor George, D.D., 133. 

Harrison, Gessner, 30. 

Harrison, Deacon Charles, 132. 



Hartford County, tract-agent in, 18. 
Harvard Universitv, cabinet of minerals, 

3; confers LL.D", 49. 
Haseltine, Miss, a teacher, 9. 
Hat, the Friend's, how removed, 156. 
' ; Hatful in an hour," 259. 
Haworth, 90. 

Hazard professorship established, 273. 
Health at Brown, 130. 
Heart, public and private, 332. 
Heathen, sneering at, 365; judgment on, 

365. 
Heaven, 205, 362, 365; entered by defec- 
tive men, 205. 
Hebrew, study of, 19; professor of, 35; 

chair filled, 103. 
Hegel, eye of, 314. 
Heidelberg, 89, 96. 
Hell, 205, 364. 

Hengstenberg, his lectures, 97. 
Herculaneum, 84. 
Heresy, charges of, 235, 237, 238; "they 

scent," 343. 
Higher criticism anticipated, 171, 247. 
Hill, Mr., his school, 5; flogged by, 6; 

lesson learned from, 6. 
Historian, requisites of, 358. 
History, and Political Economy divided, 

273; ecclesiastical, and infidelity, 357; 

conditions of its truth, 358 ; a supposed, 

of United States, 359. 
Hitchcock, Roswell D., 64. 
Hodge, Professor Charles, D.D., 207, 

252. 
Holiness, doctrine of, 174; fundamental, 

175; constitutional, 183. 
Holmes, Dr. O. W., 33. 
Home, leaves, for school, 9 ; laughed at 

on return, 11. 
Homiletics, teaches, 48, 257; method of 

teaching, 55, 258; his dictum in, 258; 

lectures on, at Yale, 261, 282, 367; at 

Newton, 282. 
Honesty, intellectual and moral, 264. 
Hopkins, President Mark, D.D., LL.D., 

250. 
Hopkins, Professor T. W., 361. 
Hotchkiss, Professor VelonaR., D.D., 57, 

64, 166; resigns, 75; his character, 75; 

misapprehensions removed, 76. 
House for president, 102. 
Hovey, President Alvah, D.D., LL.D., 

106. 
Hoyt, J. B., his prompt generosity, 64. 
Hoyt, Dr. Wayland, sermon at his ordi- 
nation, 70; follows as suppl}', 131; 

on " A Teacher of Homiletics and a 

Preacher," 257. 
Hulbert, Professor E. B.,D.D.,on respect 

for dull men, 323. 
Humiliation, Christ's, 55. 
Humilitv, 144, 220. 
Humor, 153, 158. 
Hyde Lectures at Andover, 132. 



INDEX. 



375 



Idea, injury of a foul, 366. 

Ignorance is rational, "227. 

Illness, 22, 26, 31, 58, 09, 105, 137. 

Illustrations, 139, 2S8. 

"Image of God," 180. 

Immanence of God, 177; in nature and 
man, 207. 

" Immanent finality," 170. 

Immortality, personal, 203. 

Impression of moral sublimity given, 
218. 

Improvements, difficulty in effecting, 107, 
118. 

Imputation, mediate, 184. 

Inaugural address, 40; literaiy quality 
of, 332. 

Incarnation, its nature, 187; is taking 
precedence of atonement, 215; relation 
established by, 362. 

Independence, 206, 219. 

Infants born sinful, 186; how saved, 186. 

Influence, exerted on President Strong, 
167; Baptist pulpit, 160, 250, 261; the 
generation, 207, 212, 253-; voung men, 
213, 231, 234, 254; secret of, 254; 
President De Blois, 294; on students 
at Chicago, 321. 

Insight, 212, 310. 

Inspiration, 50; argument for, 170; 
theories discarded, 171 ; relation of 
divine and human elements, 171 ; 
broad views of, 206; in preaching de- 
pends, 262; verbal theory of, 361. 

Institute, Western Theological, at Cov- 
ington, 33, 35, 351. 

Instruction, its standard raised at Brown, 
130; during last years at Rochester, 
245; advanced, fitness to lead in, 248; 
at Brown, method of, 283. 

Intellect, stimulated, 235; disciplined, 363. 

Intellectual honesty, 157, 264. 

Intellectual independence, 206, 219. 

Interest, in Psychology class decreased, 
301; in human affairs broad, 344. 

Interlachen, 96. 

Interpellation challenged, 330. 

Intolerant, intellectually, 312; not so. 207. 

Intuitionalist, an, 208; an ethical, 305. 

Intuitions, 299. 

Investigation, faith in, 236. 

" Iron Man, the," 27. 

Irving, Rev. Edward, 188. 

Italian lakes, 88. 



James River, voyage up, 23. 

Japan, a lecture on, 344. 

Jean Paul, on village teachers, 168. 

Jefferson, Thomas, bis biographer, 30. 

Jenckes, Thomas A.. 13. 

Jenks, Professor J. W. P., 4, 26. 

Jeter, Rev. Dr. J. B., 28. 31, 353. 

John, First Epistle of, Hackett on, 104. 

John, Gospel of, lectures on, 30. 



Johnson, Rev. M. F.. 124, 361. 
Johnson's " Hermit," 7. 

Jones, Uev. Dr. T. G., 124, 158. 
'•Journal and Messenger," 234. 
Journey, by stage, 9; wedding, 30; an 

old-time, 33; by canal-boat, 34; in 

Europe, 77; by carriage, 107. 
Judaism new-vamped, 202. 
Judgment, 204; an eternal process, 204, 

362. 
June, snow in, 88. 
Jungfrau, 96. 
Justice, its nature, 175; "immutable," 

190. 
Justification, Protestant view of, 197 ; 

includes moral change, 198, 236. 



Kant, 144, 169, 298. 
Kantian-Hamilton view of Knowledge, 

300. 
Kendrick, A. C, D.D., 76, 101, 104, 166, 

211, 244. 
Kenilworth, 94. 
Kennedy, Captain, 78. 
Kenosis, early teaches, in America, 56, 

187. 
Kingdom of God, its triumph, 218. 
Knowledge, problem of, 295 ; of where 

one is going, 362; defined, 300. 
Knox, John, changes since, 92. 



Laboratories, presses for, 112, 274. 

Lacordaire, 40. 

"Lacuna?," in his system of theology, 
252. 

Ladd, Hon. Herbert W-, founds Obser- 
vatory, 117, 130, 272, 278. 

Lamp-posts at Brown, 111. 

Land, speculating in, 44; speculation for 
divinity school. 355. 

Lange, visit to, 89. 

Langley, Alfred G., A. M., compiles list 
of publications, vi; his translation of 
Leibnitz, vi ; gathers a philosophy 
class, 275; on "A Teacher of Philo- 
sophy," 281 ; specimen of lecture-room 
sayings, 363. 

Language, choice master of, 261. 

Languages. Modern, instruction in, im- 
proved, 273; Oriental, 364. 

" Last Judgment," 86. 

Last public service, 137, 339, 341. 

Law, 60, 362, 364, 365; supposed to be 
preparing for, 14; defined, 60; sub- 
ject of sermons, 156; idea of, 175, 230, 
232; constitutional, 183; not a cause, 
365; not a scarecrow, 365. 

Leader, an educational, why? 275. 

Lecture on "Church and the Bible," an 
anecdote, 238. 

Lecture-room, manner in, 233. 

Lectures (cf. the theological), the intro- 



376 



INDEX. 



ductorj', most important, 225 ; at An- 
dover, 132; at Rochester, 133; at 
Crozer, 134, 282; at Brown, 135. 

Lectureship, Samuel A. Crozer, 282. 

Legs, no ability to think on, at college, 
25. 

Leighton, Archbishop, relics of, 91. 

Liberalizer of ethical ' and religious 
thought, 314. 

Library, Neander, 55, 62, 103 ; John 
Carter Brown, 129, 272, 278. 

License to preach, 18. 

Life, theory of Atonement, 59; like a 
top, 363." 

Lightfoot, Bishop J. B., 133. 

Limitations of human thought recog- 
nized, 252. 

" Limits of Religious Thought " of H. L. 
Mansel, 53. 

Lincoln, Abraham, address on assassina- 
tion of, 66, 341. 

Lincoln, Dr. Heman, 106. 

Lind, Jenny, 148, 151. 

Liquor-dealers, his action towards, 29. 

Literary man potentially, 332. 

Literature, his first taste of, 7 ; systemati- 
cally read when young, 288; light, read 
in vacations, 288. 

Liverpool, incident on landing at, 78. 

Locke, John, 363. 

Logos, 194, 195. 

London, Faull's Hotel, 79; city churches, 
82; snow-fall in, 83. 

Loneliness of Christ, a sermon on, 134. 

Lords, House of, 95. 

Lothrop, Hon. George Van Ness, 13, 25. 

Love, a form of holiness, 175 ; when le- 
gitimate, 184. 

Lucerne, 96. 

Lucretius, the " dunghill " of, 363. 

Lvman bequest, 117/130, 272. 

Lynd, Dr. S. W., 37, 148. 



MacArthur, Rev. Dr., 103, 237. 

Macaulay quoted. 141. 

Machonochie, " Father," 82. 

Madison Avenue Lectures, 238. 

Maginnis, Dr. J. S.. 43, 164, 332. 

Maroon, Dr. E. L., 38, 148. 

Maiaria, 31, 102, 105. 

Mamertine prison, 86. 

Man, original likeness to God, 180; his 

original capacity, 182; a son of God, 

218 ; brotherhood of, 218. 
Manner, as a student, 25; earliest as 

teacher, 239. 
Manning, Archbishop, sermon by, 79. 
Manning Hall, 281. 
Mansel, H. L., "The Limits of Religious 

Thought," 53. 
Marries, 30. 
Marseilles, 84. 
Martineau, Dr. James, sermon by, 79. 



Mason, John H., 275. 

Materialism, 203. 

Mathematics, course improved, 273 

Matter, doctrine of, 177. 

McMicken, Charles, 149. 

Melodeon Hall, 147. 

Melrose, 91. 

Melville, Dr. Henry, sermon by, 81. 

Memorial Church, Philadelphia, 47, 131 ; 
portrait at, 131. 

Memorial services, 138, 142. 

Mental, activity to last, 141 ; or physical 
disease and demons, 350. 

Mercy, 362. 

Metaphysics and Ethics, Lectures on ques- 
tions in, 281. 

Metcalf estate, 129, 272. 

Method, theological, five points in, 223 ; 
fixed, 225 ; positive, 308. 

"Migrations of the Clergy," 159. 

Milan, 87. 

Milkman, anecdote of a, 150. 

Miller, H. Thane, his first prayer, 154. 

Mims, James S-, 20. 

Ministerial education, faith in, 250. 

Miracle, as a sign, 178; relation to nat- 
ural law, 178. 

Missions, lectures on, 132, 133. 

Modern, languages, at Brown, 118; sys- 
tem the most, in America, 206. 

Monev-raising, 52, 63, 75. 

Monism, difficulties of, 302. 

Moore, Rev. Dr. William, 240. 

Moral, influence theory of atonement, 59; 
obligation, sense of, 143; law, 305; 
without virtue, 365. 

Morgan, Dr. T. J., 246. 

Morton, Chief Justice, 13. 

Moses, Michael Angelo's, 86. 

Moss, Dr. Lemuel, 236. 

Mote, Mr. Marcus, 156. 

Mother, 4, 8. 

Mother's tears irresistible. 277. 

Movement of religious thought, 206, 214, 
219. 

Murray', Lindley, his grammar, 5. 

Mystery not peculiar to theology, 227. 

Mystical impressibleness, 350. 



Naples, 84. 

Natural Law, its immutability, 180: Sci- 
ence, increased interest in, 118; Theol- 
ogy, 281. 

Nature, and Revelation related, 183 ; in- 
herited, guilty, 186; of a thing, how 
discerned, 230. 

Neander, J. A. W., his library, 55, 62, 
103; his helpfulness, 60; translates his 
"Planting and Training," 64, 66,70. 

Necessitarianism, 179, 362. 

Nestorianism, 187. 

New Hampton Academy, see Hampton. 

New Theology, a precursor of, 206. 



INDEX. 



377 



Newton Theological Institution, 19; en- 
ters, 20 ; friendships at, '20; teachers at, 
20; meagre library, 22: health at, 22; 
work in Honiileties at, 282. 

Nice, 84. 

Ninth Street, Baptist Church, Cincinnati, 
39; becomes pastor of, 41; its charac- 
ter, 42, 148; its position, 148; appear- 
ance in its pulpit, 149; hearers there, 
14'J ; its music, 150; revival there, 154; 
influence there, 158; address from old 
parishioners, 158. 

Noel, Rev. Baptist, 82. 

Nominalism, ;J04. 

Norfolk, Virginia, preaches at, 22; of- 
fered pastorate at, 23 ; why call accepted, 
24; enters on pastorate of, 28: revisits, 
124. 

North, English sympathy against, 80. 

Northrup.Prof. George W.,D.D., LL.D., 
professor at Rochester 57, 106, 212; 
resigns his chair, 101 ; his memorial 
address, 138 ; on "A Seer," 211; presi- 
dent of Theological Seminary, Chicago, 
58, 212. 

Notes, neglect of making, 50 ; of early 
lectures, 224. 

Nott, A. K.,67. 



Objections always fully considered, 308. 

Observatory, Ladd, 272." 

Ohio, voyage on, 34. 

Old-school theologian, was, 176, 197. 

Ontology, 281. 

Opera in Naples, 85. 

Opponents, 286. 

Oratorical study, 23. 

Oratory, 155, 163, 263, 327, 335. 

Ordination, 28. 

Original, state of man, 180 ; sin, mitiga- 
tions of, 185. 

Ostia, 87. 

Overstatement, avoided, 169 ; sometimes 
practised, 361. 

Oxford, England, 93. 



Page, William, artist, 44. 
Painting and sculpture, begins to appre- 
ciate, 86. 
Pan-spermism, 364. 
Pantheism, 363. 
Pantheon, 86. 
Pardon, 198. 

Paris, 83, 95; a baptism in, 96. 
" Paris, City of," steamer, 78. 
Parishioners in Cincinnati, 42, 149. 
Park, Dr. E. A., 53, 253. 
Parker, Deacon Caleb, 33. 
Parker, Dr. J. W., his opinion, 26. 
Parker, Miss Harriet Richards, wife, 30. 
Parker, Theodora, 50, lecture on, 329. 
Parliament, debate in the Lords, 95. 



Pastoral, experience advantageous, 147- 
manners, 152. 

Patriot but not partisan, 344. 

Pattison, Dr. Robert E., 33, 35, 36, 38, 
148, 239, 352, 353. 

Paul, his allusion to marriage, 159; his 
"all sinned," 185. 

Paul's, St., Church of, without, 87. 

Pawtucket, resides in, 4. 

Pawtucket Academy, 5. 

Pawtucket Church, unites with, 12. 

Peck, Ann T., case of, 349. 

Peddie. Dr. John, 135. 

Pelagians, 180. 

Penalty and consequences, 183 ; not re- 
formatory, 206; moral, 302. 

Perception, what? 295; relation to sensa- 
tion, 296. 

Perfection not at creation, 180. 

Personality, a striking, 327. 

Peterborough, 90. 

Ph. I)., wished Brown to offer, 274. 

Phenomena, in knowing, know object, 
174. 

Philadelphia, sermons in, 47; at Broad 
Street, 131, 134; at Fifth Church, 135. 

Philerminian Society, 14. 

Philosophy his, impeded him, 169; sole 
teacher of, at Brown, 210; history of, 
lectures on, 275, 281, 289, 293; is psy- 
chology, 301 ; dualistic, 302 : a final, not 
possible, 303, 309; rational, 308 ; of 
older school, 312. 

Phillips Academy, 13. 

Phosphorescence in the dying, 350. 

Physics, former bad provision at Brown, 
110. 

Physiological Psychology, did not teach, 
298. 

Physiological schools, 297. 

" Pieta " of Angelo, 86. 

"Pilgrim's Progress," 7. 

Piper, Professor, 97. 

Pisa, 84. 

Pittsburg. 34. 

Pius Ninth, Pope, 80. 

Plan in sermonizing, 258. 

" Pleasures of Hope " quoted, 26. 

Pliny's villa, 87. 

Poetical tribute, 134. 

Poets, influence of, 328. 

Poisoned by wild plants, 8. 

"Policeman within." 303. 

"Political Classbook, The," 8. 

Pompeii, 84. 

Popularity, declines at Brown. 277; high 
at Chicago, 323. 

Porter, Dr., of Farmington, 19. 

Porter, President Noah, 19, 288. 

Portrait, 44. 131, 134. 

Positive, was extremely, 293. 

Positivists, 180. 

Post-graduate study, his own, 19 ; class 
in, 104 ; leader in, 243. 



378 



INDEX. 



Post-seminary class, 104; members, 246; 
work done at, 246; topics of study, 247; 
Mrs. Robinson's participation, 247. 

Post-seminarv instruction, at Rochester, 
243 ; at Chicago, 251. 

Potatoes, discourses on, 344. 

Prayer and law, 180. 

Prayers, 123, 144, 235, 237, 262, 334, 345. 

Preacher, average American, superior to 
English, 101; estimates of, as a, 154, 
156, 163, 265 ; to whom attractive, 47, 
156, 265; as judged by a lad, 156. 

Preaching, its influence on theology, 66 ; 
a notable failure in, 140; raised the 
standard of, 213,261; high ideal of, 
259 ; inspiring, 259 ; Yale lectures on, 
261, 282; secret of authoritative, 262 ; 
intellectual honesty in, 264. 

Preparation for ministry, his high opinion 
of, 252. 

Presbyterian Church, First, Rochester, 
preaches for, 65 ; incident at, 66 ; in- 
congruous relations to, 66; elders of 
another church are interviewed, 160. 

Presidency, at Rochester, 68 ; at Brown, 
107; resigns at Brown, 129, 131; ma- 
terial results at Brown, 272; educa- 
tion results at Brown, 273; later years 
of, burdened, 286. 

President, qualifications, 270, 273; diffi- 
culties, 270; various duties, 270; limi- 
tations, 276. 

Pride and humility united, 144. 

Princeton, 165, 227 ; its Federal Theory, 
54; its theory of Covenants, 165. 

"Principles and Practice of Morality," 
283, 307. 

Problems, insoluble, admitted, 309. 

Professor, at Covington, 35; at Roches- 
ter, 49; spirit as, 61; of Intellectual 
and Moral Philosophy at Brown, 281. 

Progress at Brown hindered bv Corpora- 
tion, 107, 112, 119, 270, 286." 

Progressive in doctrine, 206. 

Prophet, rather than apostle, 156. 

Prostration of business in 1842, 356. 

Providence, First Baptist Meeting-house 
of, preaches at, 264, 265. 

Providence, a special, 24. 

Psalms, imprecatory, 171. 

Psychology and ontology, gives instruc- 
tion in, 281; foundation of ethics and 

' theology, 294; laboratories of, 298; 
lessened interest in, 301 ; a question, 
301. 

Public speaking causes sickness, 20. 

Pulpit, appearance in, 155, 163, 263; 
changed doctrines of, 215. 

Punishment, eternal, 205; subjective, 
362. 

Puritan strain in, 124, 343. 

Puteoli, 84. 

Putnam, Dr., effects of a compliment 
from, 32. 



Questions, invited, 233,235, 237,283; 
which repelled, 233, 238, 323. 



Race, organic unity of, 186. 

Randolph, John, his half-brother, 30. 

Rauschenbusch, Professor, 64, 166. 

Raymond, Professor J. H., 46. 

Read, learning to, 4. 

Reading, up to date, 133. 

Realism, 169, 194, 364; and Adam's sin, 
185; Idealistic, 297. 

Realist, was a, 185, 298; not a consistent, 
185. 

Reality, a passion for, 169, 206. 

Reason, its prerogative, 226. 

Recitations, class-room, 288. 

Recluse, not a, 344. 

"Recorder," New York, 43, 73. 

Regeneration, 181; relation to justifica- 
tion, 199. 

Registrar, office of,at Brown, divided, 274. 

Regularity at college, 130. 

Relativity of knowledge, 53, 54, 169. 

Religion," 363, 364; sources of authority 
in, 226. 

Religious experience, early, 12; thought, 
changes in, 214, 216. 

Reminiscences bv fellow students, 24. 

Remorse, 186, 304. 

Reports to Corporation of Brown, 118. 

Reserve, 312; origin of, 123. 

Resignations, 19, 31, 33, 37, 43, 107, 129, 
322. 

" Responsibility, Human, Limitations 
of," 17. 

Restatement of old faiths, 313. 

Resurrection, 203. 

Revelation, part of God's plan, 214; mani- 
fold sources, 226; reason and faith 
subordinate to, 229 ; facts of, in terms 
of reason, 231. 

Reverence, more than affection for, 294; 
characteristic of a great mind, 363. 

Revival of religion affects, 18. 

Rhetoric neat, not showv, 328, 335. 

Rhine, 89. 

Rhode Island Hall, 110, 272. 

Richmond, 23. 

Ridicule sometimes employed, 239. 

Ridiculous, never seemed. 238. 

Ripley, Professor H. J., 22. 

Ritschlian School, a precursor of, 206. 

Robertson's theory of atonement, 191. 

Robins, Ephraim, 355. 

Robins, Rev. Dr. Henry E., 355. 

Robinson, Mrs., why memoir compara- 
tively silent about, vi ; her helpfulness 
to her husband, vi; her husband's 
estimate of her, vi, 30; marriage, 
30; letters from, upon her husband's 
method of sermon preparation, 45; her 
hospitality, 247; her contributions to 
discussion, 247. 



INDEX. 



379 



Robinson, Rev. Mr., of Cambridge, 90. 

Robinson, Ezekiel, 3; removal to Paw- 
tucket, 4; innkeeper and sheriff, 4; 
death, 4. 

Robinson, E. G. For suecession of events, 
see Table of Contents. 

Robinson, George, 3. 

Kobinson, John, of Levden, a descendant 
of, 3. 

Robinson, Samuel, his collection of min- 
erals in Harvard, 3; Ins catalogue of 
minerals, 4; death and tomb, 4. 

Robinson Rhetorical Society of Roches- 
ter, 137. 

" Robinsonite, a," 234. 

Rochester, First Baptist Church of, in- 
vitation to become pastor of, 31) ; sup- 
plies pulpit, 50; gives course on Scepti- 
cism, 50, 328; failure of sermon, 140. 

Rochester Theological Seminary, profes- 
sorship accepted, 43; life at, 48; rela- 
tions to university, 52, 02, 70 ; mistake 
as to assets, 02 ; endowment of, 64, 68, 
70. 75, 102, 166; made president of, 
68, 166 ; course extended, 68, 244 ; site, 
70; resolves to continue at, 100; last 
two years at, 105; leaves for Brown, 
107; success at, 106; probable improve- 
ments, 250 ; lectures on Christian Mis- 
sions at, 133. 

Rogers, William B., 30. 

Romanism, concessions to, 199. 

Rome, 85. 

Romish doctrine of man's original state, 
181. 

Rothe, Dr., 89 ; appearance of his class, 89. 

Rouen, 83. 

Rule, living by, 365. 

Russell, Lord John, 95. 

Rydal, Mount, 93. 



Sage, Rev. Dr. A. J., on " A Pastor," 
147; lecture-room discipline, 238; 
on Covington Institute, 351; attends 
Covington school, 352. 

Sage, Hon. Judge G. R., 156, 355. 

Sage, Rev. O. N., agent of Covington 
institute, 354, 355. 

Salary, 31, 48 note, 50, 65, 102. 

Salvation. 1 '.Hi, 108, 200. 

Saviour, how Christ is, 191. 

Savonarola, 87. 

Savles, William F., 114. 

Sa'yles Hall, 114, 129, 272. 

Scepticism, lectures on, 42, 47, 50, 157, 
328. 

Scheme of theological education pro- 
posed, 220. 

Schenkel, 89. 

Scherer, 50.- 

Schleiermacher, 100. 

School, forgotten at, 4; earliest recollec- 
tions of, 4. 



Schools, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 11, 12. 

Schopenhauer, 298. 

Science, modern, and moral law, 60; 
what, 214, 361; physical and physio- 
logical, not neglected, 21)7; physical, 
and -'crockery gods," 297. 

Scott, Jacob R., 20. 

Scott, Sir Walter, 136; his novels, 16. 

Scriptures, Holy, a fact, 220. 

Sears, Dr. Barnas, 21, 24, 164. 

Secret of his power, 254. 

Sectarianism, 202. 

Seer of first order, 213. 

Self-confidence wanting and increased, 
27, 30. 45, 51, 52, 54, 105. 

Self-love, as to, 184. 

Self-restraint, how begun, 123. 

Seminar, 246. 

Seminarv, Rochester Theological, finan- 
cial, see Rochester. 

Sensation, 296, 366. 

Sensibility, 123, 300. 

Sermon, the first, 18, 20; method of pre- 
paring, 44; an appropriate, 88; last, 
137, 341; last published, 217; matter 
of, 264; power of, 264; for Missionary 
Society at Brown, 56. 

Sermon-making taught, 51, 236, 258, 260. 

Sermon-methcd, 44 note. 

Shedd, Dr. W. G. T., "Essay on Sin," 
53; "Essay on Atonement," 190. 

Sheldon, Smith, his proposal, 64. 

Shenandoah Valley, 30. 

Shyness, a characteristic, 27. 

Sibyl's cave, 84. 

Side-talks, 233. 

Sin, " a nature, and that nature guilt," 
53; investigation of, 54, 58; defined, 
58, 184, 188; an Old School view of, 
176; original, 183; its essence, 184; its 
consequences, 185, 205 ; its scars, 206 ; 
infinite nonsense as to, 362. 

Sinner as accomplishing own salvation, 
196. 

Sistine chapel frescos, 86. 

Slater, Mr. H. N., 113. 

Slater Hall, 129, 272. 

Slaveholders, an interview, 36; tribute 
from, 240. 

Slavery, first seen, 22; question, 36, 353. 

Smith," Henry B., 207 ; post-graduate 
classes, 246 ; his characteristics, 253. 

Smith, Rev. Dr. Justin A., 49. 

Societal at Dorner's, 97. 

Societies, college, present and past, 14. 

Society of Missionary Inquiry, 56. 

Socini'an theory of atonement, 192. 

Solfatara, 84. 

Son of God. 194. 

" Son, the rising," 11. 

Soteriology, 178, 189. 

Soul, weaving body from matter, 297; its 
reality, 302. 

Soul-liberty, 207, 363. 






380 



INDEX. 



South, journeys, 22, 58. 

South, Dr. Robert, on Adam, 181. 

Speculations metaphysical, his gradua- 
tion dissertation, 26 ; ultra-Biblical, 
eschewed, 216, 225. 

Spencer, Herbert, 300. 

Spinoza, 247. 

" Spontaneities, right," as created, 181. 

Springfield, Massachusetts, misses train 
to, 24. 

Spurgeon, 80, 94 note. 

Stanley, Dean, his preaching, 81. 

Stanley, Lord, 95. 

Staubach, 96. 

Stein, like, 166. 

Stevens, Professor John, 42, 149, 355. 

Stevens, Professor W. A., 149, 355. 

Stiller, Professor J. M., D.D., 159. 

Stimulated rather than systematized, 224, 
313. 

Stirling, incident at, 91. 

Stockridge, J. C, D.D., 25. 

Stratford-on-Avon, 94. 

Strength, secret of, 254; and fineness, 328. 

Strong, President A. H., D.D., LL.D., 
138; on " A Theologian," 163; his in- 
debtedness, 163; on the preacher, 163; 
on the teacher, 164, 206. 

Student and critic to the last, 229. 

Students, influence on, 207. 

Studiousness begins, 10. 

Study, the, 53. 

Style, of pulpit address, 139 ; affected by 
Carlyle and Robert Hall, 238; extem- 
poraneous, 261, 335; written, 314, 332. 

Sublimity, moral, impression given of, 
218. 

Substitution, discussed, 59 ; forensic, 190. 

Supper, Lord's, 202. 

Supplement, 129 ; its author, vi. 

Supplementary theological work -once 
probable, 249. 

Supplying pulpits, 36, 50, 65, 67, 125, 131, 
148." 265, 328. 

Sympathy, 123, 124, 312. 

Synthetic method in class-room, 229. 

System, of theology, not always trace- 
"able, 223, 229; destroyer of old, 227, 
292; necessity of, 228; none in Scrip- 
ture, 229; of" philosophy, not always 
evident, 292; had little concern for 
making, 310. 



Tact, lack of, 276. 

Taft, Judge, 149. 

Taft, Hon. Alfonso, 42, 149. 

Taliaferro, Rev. R. H., 240. 

Taylor, Professor B. C, D.D., 265. 

Taylor, President J. M., D.D., LL.D., 
138 ; on " A Trustee and Friend," 339. 

Teacher, his first true, 10 ; more sugges- 
tive than dogmatic, 164; greatest of 
sect in his generation, 212; at best as 



theological, 233, 315 ; led to independ- 
ence, 234; a masterful, 130, 243; re- 
sults, 251, 313 ; his assured peace, 252 ; 
great, but greater educator, 315. 

Tea-drinking, 29. 

Temperance, address on, 19; his policy, 
29. 

Tenderness, 125, 153, 328, 345. 

" Thanksgiving " at Berlin, 99. 

Theologian, as a, 163; more critical than 
constructive, 164 ; ahead of times, 206, 
237, 251; prophetic, 211; place not yet 
determined, 252. 

Theological instruction, 51, 61 ; early 
method of, 223; latest scheme, 220. 

Theological seminary, faith in, 250; 
Wayland's qualified approval, 250; 
at Rochester, its relations to Univer- 
sity, 52, 70; teacher, estimate of, 164, 
206, 212. 

"Theology, Christian," 105 note, 167; 
its excellence, 168 ; its place among 
American theologies, 207. 

Theology, making a, 51, 54, 58; used 
homiletically, 53, 165; collateral 
sources of, 172, 226; notes on 202; 
defined, 225; related to new learn- 
ing, 214; theories discarded, 216; 
natural and revealed, distinction dis- 
carded, 226; limitations, 227; system- 
atized by idea of law, 231 ; related to 
all truth, 245; twenty lectures on, at 
Andover Theological Seminary, 282; 
not to be studied in cold blood, 361; 
English, since Locke's time worthless, 
363. 

Tholuck, 99; on inspiration, 50. 

Thomasius, 56. 

Thoroughness, a characteristic, 166. 

Thought, whirligig of, 363. 

" Three things," an habitual phrase, 330. 

"Times," London, 83. 

Tolerance and intolerance, 207, 312. 

Tract Society, agent of, 18 ; made life 
member of, 19. 

Train of thought lost, 150. 

Translation, of Bible, new, 56 ; of 
Neander, 64,70. 

Trevor, John B., 102. 

Trevor Hall, 102, 244. 

Trials, personal, 125, 287. 

Triennial convention, 31 note, 353. 

Trinity, 194; how to be preached, 362. 

Trossachs, 92. 

True, Professor B. O., D.D., edits the 
"Christian Theology," 105; an anec- 
dote, 142 ; a member of the post-semi- 
nary class, 246 ; on " A Leader in Post- 
graduate Study," 243; his collection of 
lecture-room savings, 361. 

Truth, love of, 139. 

Tucker, Henry St. George, 30. 

Tuition fees at Brown, 118. 

Typhoid fever, 47, 69. 



INDEX. 



381 



Union, mystical, rejected, 195; of theo- 
logical schools proposed, 74. 

United Brothers, president of, 15. 

Unity, organic, of race, 186. 

Universe, a self-revelation of God, 214; 
of infinite benevolence, 215, 217; of 
thought and energy, 309. 

Universities, fellowships for home and 
foreign study, 274. 

University Hall, 129, 272. 

University, Madison, 52. 

University of Rochester, teaches at, 52 ; 
relation of seminary to, 52, 70; of Vir- 
ginia, chaplaincy, 29; faculty, 30. 



Vassar College, chosen trustee by 
founder, 339 ; services to, 339 ; last 
sermon at, 137, 340; sermons and lec- 
tures at, 341. 

Vassar, Matthew, 339. 

Vedder, Professor H. C, 159. 

Venice, 87. 

Victor Emmanuel. 88. 

Virginia, University of, chaplain in, 29; 
faculty of, 30. 

Virtue, its soul, 184. 

Voice, 328. 

Volition, 365. 

Von Hartmann, 298. 



Walnut Street Baptist Church, Cin- 
cinnati, 38, 147. 

War, Civil, "speeches," 65, 66 note; 
efforts during, 344. 

Warren, Rev. Ur. J. G., 96. 

Warren, President, 282. 

Washington, 23. 

Wayland, President Francis, D.D., as 
an instructor, 16 ; his " Intellectual 
Philosophy," 16; his "Limitations of 
Human Responsibility," 17 ; his li Moral 
Science," 17 ; his appearance, 17 ; hears 
Inaugural Address at Rochester, 49; 
hears discourse at Brown, 56; and a 
trustee of Brown, 121; his fatherly 
counsels, 123; delight in gardening, 
136; a great president, 248; qualified 
support of seminaries, 250; his idea of 
conscience, 364. 

Wayland, H. L., D.D., on "The Closing 
Years," 129; memorial addresses, 138, 
142. 



Webster, Professor, 3. 

Wedding, journey, 30; fiftieth anniver- 
sary of, 136. 

Week-day meetings, 153. 

Wengern Alps, 96. 

Western Theological Institute, see 
Covington. 

Weston, President H. G., D.D., LL.D., 
27. 

Weyer's Cave, 30. 

Wheeler, Professor Benjamin Ide, Ph.D., 
313. 

White Sulphur Springs, 30. 

Whittemore, G. II., 103. 

Whittier, address in honor of, 344. 

Wife, obligations to, vi, 30; her lungs 
affected, 32 ; has an alarming ill- 
ness, 43 ; with resident graduate class, 
247. 

Wilkinson, Professor W. C, D. D., on 
mental independence. 219; on the 
"Orator and Man of Letters," 327. 

Will, human and Divine, 178; tremen- 
dous power of, 143; its freedom, 179, 
307 ; real freedom of, lost, 184. 

Williams, Rev. Dr. J. W. M., 31. 

Williams, Victor, choir-leader, 151 ; his 
anecdote, 151. 

Williams, William R., D.D., 333. 

Willing and knowing, God's, 180. 

Wilson, Appellate Judge, 13. 

Wilson, Mr., his bequest, 116. 

Wilson Hall, 116, 130, 272. 

Winchester, 30. 

Windermere, 93. 

Wit, 153, 158. 

Worker, zealous, 235. 

World's Columbian Exposition, 320. 

Wrentham Academy, 8. 

Writing, aversion to, 276. 

Writings published, 367. 

Wundt, 298. 

Wycoff, Jacob F., 102. 



Yale lectures, 261, 282. 367. 
Young, attractive to, when old, 47. 



Zeller's History of Greek Philosophy, 

293. 
Zoology and geology, professorship of, 

established, 273. 



